How I learned to love bologna

Why was I driving through a snowstorm yesterday thinking about how I am learning to love bologna? I wasn't sure, but I couldn't get it off my mind. I mean, what the hell am I doing living in Newfoundland, with all this beautiful majesty around me, and somehow that makes eating bologna okay. I swear to you I could not love bologna elsewhere.

I grew up in the Ottawa Valley. People around me ate balogna (baloney) sandwiches all the time. You know, on white bread with lots of margarine and french's mustard. I think I was jealous while I was eating my fried egg sandwiches with ketchup on toasted brown bread. "Is that blood on your sandwich?" kids would ask. Somehow, even with those alienating comments (or perhaps because of), I learned to look down on baloney. My mom was into health food like couscous and lentils or dutch food like boerenkoel and brown beans and bacon. Baloney was an over-processed no-no in our world.

But yesterday, looking at the snow on the drooping spruce trees along Healy's Pond driving from Rod's house, I thought 'holy shit, I think I like bologna'. We'd had bologna for lunch. Rod microwaved the hell out of it. "There's nothing you can kill in there." he says. No shit. There must have been somethings that died to get in the bologna. But that was a long, long time ago by the time it was put in the microwave. Regardless, I turned my nose up to the whole event.

When it landed in front of me, it was delicious. The fat, the salt, the yum. Newfie steak, they say at the screeching in ceremonies.

I think my favourite thing about Newfie steak is that it's pronounced "bal-og-nah" here. I could never in my child's mind understand how bologna was pronounced baloney. And, of course, Rod's entertaining comments and kind hospitality.

I've even started to love the turnip.