Brandon Ancil is a digital content producer for CNN.com

Artisan cheese - it’s not as scary as you may have thought.

“It’s blue, it’s green, it’s furry, and it might smell funny. That’s what people think when they don’t know about artisan cheese.” Says Liz Thorpe VP of Murray’s Cheese in New York and author of ‘The Cheese Chronicles. “But artisan cheeses, which by definition are hand-crafted in small-production, are made in every type of cheese style.”

Nathan Arnold, a cheese maker from Tennessee, knows people can be intimidated by artisan cheese, but he says they'll end up liking it.

“It tastes like our farm. It’s got hints of the open air and grass from around the Cumberland Plateau where we live.”
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You can't out-cook a ghost.

Goodness knows I have tried. I've spent hours, days, weeks, months in pursuit of the perfect biscuits, hauling ingredients from my husband's native North Carolina to our Brooklyn apartment, putting my lard-smeared hands on every text I could find and cornering octogenarian in-laws at holiday dinners. Moreover, I have rolled, beaten, patted and whispered to endless dough batches, made my own butter and buttermilk (the mention of that effort earned me a high-pitched "Sh*t, girl!” from none other than Paula Deen, and I will never get tired of telling people that), gone ice-less so as to accommodate more flour varieties in the freezer and I swear unto the heavens, I never, ever twist the biscuit cutter.

Still, I come giddily bearing the star of each batch, butter-slathered and piping hot, and study my husband's face as he takes the first bite. He's appreciative and unfailingly complimentary - a Southern gentleman, after all - but deep down, I know it's never going to measure up to the ones his long-departed Memama and her housekeeper Nettie rolled out on a linen pillowcase and served to him as a child. I've learned to be okay with that.

Grandmothers are canonized in Southern cooking, and while it's taken as read that your own cooking, with rare exception, will pale in comparison, willful deviation...doesn't go over so well.
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Chris Cosentino is a chef with a mission near and dear to our hearts (and kidneys, and livers...). Says he, "If you are willing to kill an animal, you should be willing to eat all of it."

We've made no secret of our deeply fond feelings toward offal, but realize there's an ick-factor to overcome for many folks. The "Gut Man" explains why he thinks you oughta have the stomach for eating the whole animal.
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5@5 is a daily, food-related list from chefs, writers, political pundits, musicians, actors, and all manner of opinionated people from around the globe.

Eatocracy's Chief Junk Food Correspondent, also known as CNN's Chief Business Correspondent Ali Velshi drops by 5@5 to vent about palate cleansers, give us a crash course in Canadian foodways and engage in charming chattery about all things edible.

Five Smörgåsbord Thoughts on Food: Ali Velshi

In this corner - the Raja of Riesling, Hearth and Terroir Wine Bar's Paul Grieco. In the other - touting the pomp of the Pontiff, The Modern's Belinda Chang and Justin Warner.

Uncork it, folks.

We've been on a grilled cheese kick at Eatocracy HQ, in pursuit of the best sandwich in all the land, from diners and haute eateries to toasters and home skillets.

When we saw cookbook author and cheese expert Laura Werlin in Aspen at the Food & Wine Classic, fresh from leading her monumentally popular seminar on just that subject, we just had to sit her down and get her top tips for a magnificent melt.

Agree with our grilled cheese guru, or do you have another method? Share with the rest of the class in the comments below.

Previously – Grilled cheese, please! and Grilled cheese and...grape jelly?

Eatocracy sat down with John Besh, Marcus Samuelsson, the Voltaggio Brothers and others at the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen to discuss the disaster in the Gulf and the future of American seafood.
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