Gayle V's Best Ever Grilled Cheese started at the Green City Market in 2010 at the Prairie Pure Cheese booth. I was selling cheese at the market and thought since there was fresh baked bread right next to me (Bennison's Bakery from Evanston, IL) and fresh butter on the other side of the market (Nordic Creamery from Westby, WI) and I had the best cheese for melting, maybe I should make grilled cheese. And so it began. I only use Prairie Pure Cheese from Belvidere, IL.

Let me tell you a little about how I came to be a cheese vendor at the market. I had a home based bookkeeping business Brian J. Gerloff, DVM, PhD was one of my clients. Brian had a large animal veterinary practice in Northern Illinois and had noticed a dramatic decline in the number of dairy farms. He wanted to do something to help sustain at least one farm so he partnered up with one of his clients, Todd and Brenda Aves in Belvidere, IL, (a 100 year old dairy farm with 90 cows) and started Prairie Pure Cheese. When Brian sold his practice and no longer needed a bookkeeper, he asked if I would like to be the sales rep, market vendor and delivery person for Prairie Pure Cheese. Since I had filled in at the market a few times for him, (and absolutely loved it), I said sure! I was doing 2 markets at the time, (3 days), and now do 4 markets.

Not only has the cheese sustained the Aves' farm, buy they have put up a new barn and added cows to their herd. Grilled cheese with a purpose! They now are using milk from the Hildebrandt Family Farms.