Thursday, December 14, 2006

Olla Podrida



I found this in my in-box today as the Word of The Day:

olla podrida \ol-uh-puh-DREE-duh; oy-uh-\, noun;
plural olla podridas /-DREE-duhz/ or ollas podridas:

1. A stew of highly seasoned meat and vegetables.
2. A mixture; a hodgepodge.


This complex, Byzantine, at times long-winded work, which spent more than 60 weeks on Spain's best sellers list, throws together mystery, romance, and crime into one big mix like an olla podrida.
-- Lawrence Olszewski, review of The Shadow of the Wind, by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, Library Journal, February 1, 2004

I'd never heard this word before, but it did accurately describe The Shadow of the Wind, a book which I very much enjoyed reading.

BTW olla podrida, if translated literally, means rotten pot.

12 comments:

Brooke said...

Rotten pot... You know the old nursery rhyme...
Peas porridge hot,
peas porridge cold,
peas porridge in the pot, nine days old.

I wish I had time to read like I used to. I'm sure that once the babies are a bit older, I won't be interrupted every half-a paragraph.

The Merry Widow said...

Brooke- Later on, they want to discuss life, the universe and everything! So you might get in a whole paragraph before philosophy!

tmw

Anonymous said...

Ah, yes. Time to read. Now there's a missing passion in my life.

Anonymous said...

Where is the puddy tat Cubee.?

It's 10.00pm on a Friday night in Oz!
I gotta go to bed soon mate!!

cube said...

brooke: tmw is right. Once you have kids you'll never ever have long blocks of free time for uninterrupted reading.

kathy: your Friday is our Thursday.

Brooke said...

A girl can dream, can't she? ;)

nanc said...

i've come to the decision - after three children - the ONLY times they REALLY want to speak in depth are:

1. when YOU'RE on the p.c.

2. when YOU'RE reading

3. when YOU'RE 'stremely busy

or - drumroll please:

4. when YOU'RE on the pot!

soooooo, as they've trained me this way, whenever i need to speak with them about ANYTHING - i just act like i'm doing one of the aforementioned tasks and VOILA! they're all over me like flies on...well, you get my drift. they'll even start telling me things i never wanted to know...oh boo...

nanc said...

i meant i've come to the "conclusion" - my terrible.

cube said...

nanc: Those little rascals all do that.

The Merry Widow said...

Nanc- Telephone, especially long distance!

tmw

cube said...

nanc: or when you're watching your favorite TV show.

nanc said...

speaking of t.v. shows - yesterday i discovered "hogan knows best" - it was the "koshermania" episode - and since i don't watch all that much t.v. - i was rapt - lmao! begging the rest of my family to PLEASE come and watch it - but NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO and it was so hilarious and i didn't hear one foul word - it was on vh-1.