Who wants to make meatballs? Not me.

I bought this Italian sausage. -->

It's made by Morrison Meat Packers in Miami, Fla.

If you're not Italian (I'm not), and you're from Texas (I am/or was), the only place you've seen Italian sausage is on a pizza.

But I wanted pasta, with store-bought Italian pasta sauce. And I didn't want to make beef meatballs.

I know. A lot of people don't have a problem with beef, or with making beef meatballs. I just never was fascinated with ground beef - don't like the smell. And why bother adding all the Italian spices if you can get a meat that already has them?

So, I decided to try this sausage. I cooked it on the grill, mashed it into bits and boiled my pasta in a pot. I was hungry so I didn't want to get too imaginative. Let's eat, already!

I put some Winn Dixie Fra Diavolo Spicy Pasta Sauce in a bowl and heated it in the microwave, opened a can of whole, pitted black olives. That was it and this is what it looks like:

Yes, I could have sliced or mashed up the olives, but I didn't want to. Okay?! Call it the little kid in me, but I love munching on olives, so I left them whole so that I would CONTEMPLATE the olive as I ate it.

Remember when you were a little kids and stuffed your mouth with Bazooka Bubble Gum? It's like that.

I had this with a cheap Chilean red wine called Carta Vieja. I have a fondness for Chilean reds.

Buen provecho!