Last Friday, it was a thousand degrees outside. I was frustrated from work and reeeeealllly wanted to go to Glory Days for Rippers and wings.  But my wonderful friend, Sheatiger encouraged me to make good choices.  I told her how I'm balancing my food intake this week because I want to enjoy some barbeque for Memorial Day.  She reminded me that there are always going to be times that pop up when you have to eat something that you'd rather not, so when you can choose a healthy option might as well do it.  That made a lot of sense.  So I scrapped my Glory Days reverie and  decided on Chik-fil-A.  Ummm, wait. "That's not much better, Stacey," was Sheatiger's admonishment.

So, I asked God for strength to make the best choice for my body, His best choice for me and went home and ate this:

Thanks, Mrs. Sam for introducing me to this wonderful meal.  What you see before you is one organic tomato, half of an organic cucumber, a bowl of organic strawberries, olives from Weggo's olive bar (of which I only got to eat 6 because they magically disappeared when I went back the next day to have some.  I'm sure my dad enjoyed them as much as I did.) There is also a piece of gyro bread, two pieces of organic turkey and some Domiati cheese.  Mrs. Sam, a native Egyptian, ate a similar meal every day of her young life.  When she came to the states, all that changed.  Her once veggie, organic dairy and meat based diet soon became composed of what Jordan Rubin calls the "SAD" Standard American Diet.  She gained a bunch of weight, became tired and irritable all the time and regularly irregular (if you know what I mean.)  Long story short, she's now my workout buddy and we are working on her food choices.  

*WARNING If you are one of the few people on this planet who crave salty over sweet, this meal is addictive.  Domiati cheese or as the locals call it gibna hagda, or gibna badiya which basically means white cheese.  The cheese is usually made with buffalo milk, but can be made with cow, sheep or goat milk.  It's texture is soft, yet crumbly, similar to feta, but unlike feta the milk is heavily salted before rennet is added to the mixture.  (Feta is soaked in a salt brine after it has formed.)

The cheese is then fermented for 1-3 years to get especially funky before it is used to add to other dishes or in this case to eat smeared on a piece of bread topped with a slice of cucumber and tomato and drizzled with the whey.  The cheese is super salty and a bit spicy as this particular brand is aged with hot peppers added to it.  It's so salty, it can sit out on your table forever without going bad.  But if you're anything like me, it won't last that long.  I've had several encounters with this wonderful cheese and have just placed an order for my own tin.  Cannot wait till arrives!  When it does, I'll post a video for a delicious recipe using this most versatile cheese.