I make a damn good spaghetti sauce.

I do. You wanna say otherwise, we may have a problem. Or perhaps a sauce-off.

First off, fine, I'll admit it: I don't make it from scratch. Mainly 'cause I don't have five and a half hours to stew tomatos or whatever the hell else Trader Joe does before he puts the stuff into jars and sells it to me at considerable markup. I figure he's gone through all this trouble, I'm not gonna spit in his face by scorning his labor.

But from that point on, it's all me, baby. Me and my God-given ingenuity. You're not gonna find this recipe in some white man's book.

No, I dish out Italian by way of Peru with maybe a layover in Spain or a side trip to China. And if I've got a little curry handy, I go a little Bollywood, just 'cause I like their dancin'.

The end result? A feast for the ages. Ask El Jefe. He'll tell you. As will Fizz, JMac and the many others who've partaken of this ambrosia. They know whose game this is.

But like the cabernet I down, it's a bittersweet thing.

See, I used to have an army to feed - the aforementioned boyz. Now it's just me and Helias, maybe Doll, if he can pry himself from physics long enough to enjoy a good meal. But the thrill is gone. Usually I'd serve up my creation while poker chips still littered the table and Elisha Cuthbert played a porn star on the teevee. Trash would be talked, bets would be antied and women would be objectified, all over a fine plate of the Tin Man's spaghetti.

Ahhh, those were the days. Will they come again? I know not. For now, I'll just continue lunching on the leftovers of the past.

But you know what?

They're still damn tasty.

- TM