Cheese Never Sleeps

It's been a while since I've been to Borough Market, and since I was in the neighbourhood, I thought I'd stop at this foodie delight for an afternoon stroll through its numerous wonders. I hit the market right around the lunch hour, so the queues and crowds were of Saturday numbers, and people seemed equally involved in buying things to eat on the spot as well as finding delicious gifts and treats for later.

Carollers gathered around a Christmas tree in the centre of the market, which is where I first noticed the slogans on the backs of the market chairs:

Monmouth was far too busy today to grab a coffee,

but it was the adjacent Market Porter pub that was doing staggering lunchtime business. Everyone standing outside the pub had a drink in hand, and you couldn't even see inside on the way past.

My favourite raclette stand was doing brisk business, and I thought about having some of the hot and gooey treat, but was disappointed to see it had undergone its second price increase in a year (going from £3.50 to £4 to today's price of £5), so I passed. The mountains of bread and cheese at the same booth awaiting their pressing into grilled cheese sandwiches looked tempting as well, but I kept on walking.

The variety at Borough is always impressive, no matter the season.

I sampled this Ubriaco (Italian for "drunk") cheese and was impressed with its nutty flavour--apparently, the rind's wonderful colour comes from the cheese's six-month immersion in red wine, and the resulting cheese won its class at the 2007 World Cheese Awards:

Speaking of cheese, this shop has a nice slogan:

While this mountain of brownies may look impressive,

and Flour Power City Bakery has booths at most farmers' markets in London, Mr. Chocolate himself (Bob) found them a bit lacking, instead proclaiming the best brownie EVER to come out of the humble doors of Brick Lane's Beigel Bake, and at the equally humble price of 60 pence. "They're almost too chocolatey," Bob's said of the Beigel Bake brownies, something that may seem like a ridiculous sentence for Mr. Chocolate, but they're just THAT chocolatey. On a healthier note, I liked the signage for my favourite winter vegetable phenomenon--Brussels sprouts on the stem:

This shop sells all manner of tempting food items from Spain:

Now that's a mushroom!

And I'm not quite sure what's happened to Santa here amongst the Christmas trees:

It appears he's been into a bit of alcohol and nicotine, but I'm not quite sure how to make the leap from that to the scene presented here? (Or how a decapitated Santa will lead to higher tree sales, for that matter!)