14 May 2009

SOPA so good...

so i was under the impression that sopa meant soup in spanish, and while i'm not presently eating anything, this recipe for a mexican noodle casserole is oddly fitting for the wrong reasons. the dish is called sopa seca (which means, in my logical and somewhat literal mind, seca soup) but clearly the recipe lacks any bit of broth or stock. the only thing linking this to my blog is it's gratuitous use of noodle and the odd resemblance to the spasagna i wrote about yesterday.

this search for a spanish pasta stems from the amusement i encounter every morning on the way to work...

[cue Handel's Water Music e.g. the theme song from the Frugal Gourmet]

imagine one of those curvy roads you are used to seeing in the many luxury sedan commercials, you know, like the lexus driving to classical music on the flawless asphalt road located in some faraway redwood forest? now imagine that same road with potholes and envision that lexus as a chromed-out, 94 honda accord, weaving amongst the roadkill. well, at two random clearings by the road, it has become commonplace to see trash dumped - a plethora of mattresses, 60s era televisions, diapers and the like. i had witnessed the (presumably) owner cleaning this up on many occasions. about two weeks ago, i noticed the trash beginning to surface again, this time with a sign saying "why? this is nasty." (oddly, heard in a voice similar to cleveland brown from family guy) it seems like the owner/farmer owns both spots, because the sign is in the same handwriting in both spots.

fast forward to this week, and the whole punchline to this (hopefully) funny story. a new sign has started to accompany the "why so nasty" sign - in a language i can't decipher. each of the two signs says "PORGO BENDESHO SUSO" immediately, upon getting to work, with fear of letting this enigmatic phrase leak from my ear, i google this phrase and every conceivable combination to no avail.

the following is a transcription between one of my coworkers and myself at the coffee station:

me: you know those signs i've been telling you about? well now they say "porgo bendesho suso" what can this possibly mean?

her: ???

me: it sounds like an amalgamation [i keep saying this word, i need a thesaurus] of spanish and portugese. maybe the guy was trying to write spanish but is illiterate.

her: maybe the owner saw them and they were pirates.

me: yeah, illiterate spanish/portugese speaking pirates, dumping stuff and saying "arrrrrrgh!"

her: yeah, but if they're spanish, it'd be "RRRRRRRRRRRRRR!" (rolls Rs)

so if anyone knows what "porgo bendesho suso" means, or if you try the recipe for SOPA SECA, please leave a comment. until then, i'll keep my eye out for illiterate spanish/porgugese speaking pirates (and for that previously mentioned co-worker, the pirate that looks like johnny depp, but sounds like a tonka truck).

2 comments:

  1. Your blog entries are chicken soup for my soul, with noodles, and eighty-six the chicken.

    ReplyDelete