Welcome to the second installment of our Winter Cheese Plate Winners! Here’s where you’ll find five weeks of our winning foodie bloggers, sharing their personal spins on our Winter 2012 Cheese Plate! Our next guest post comes from Katherine Hysmith, a displaced Texan and grad student at Boston University’s Gastronomy program, recording her New England kitchen adventures at The Young Austinian. Check back next Wednesday for the third post in this series, from Leah McFadden, of Shootin The Bries!

And so it begins: five weeks of our winning foodie bloggers, sharing their personal spins on our Winter 2012 Cheese Plate! Our inaugural guest post comes from pastry chef-turned cookbook author, Garrett McCord, of Vanilla Garlic. Check back next Wednesday for our second post in the series, from Katherine Hysmith -AKA- The Young Austinian.

This may not come as news to many of you, but even though the holidays are over… it’s still winter. Days are short, temperatures (here in Boston, anyway) are miserably cold, and it feels like everything in the CSA box is a root vegetable. On the other hand, sometimes all it takes to get you out of that mid-winter rut is a little fiesta… even if your birthday’s still six months away.

Enter: the culture Winter Cheese Plate!