I was at one of my favorite places the other day: Grocery Outlet. Yes, Grocery Outlet.

Why is it a favorite place? Because you never know what you’ll find there. 

Case in point, the cheese in the photo above. 

I was there perusing some crappy cheese when all of a sudden I saw a mess of American cheddar under the Back Roads label peering out of the case. Now, I may not know everything. Heck, I may not know very much. But I know cheddar.

This cheese had the look of quality. And it was from Vermont — a good sign. When I picked it up it was solid and firm. I guessed it had a nice paste. Felt like it was aged enough to have depth of flavor, at worst, and some crystallization, at best. At $5.95 per pound you can’t complain if it’s only very good.

When I saw the words “Grafton Village Cheese Company” in tiny letters at the bottom of the block I was transported into a culinary orgasmitron! Like when I found generic containers of 500 bags of PG Tips for $4.99 in the same store because the manufacturer had just downsized their tea bags and needed to get rid of older stock so their new product would not suffer by comparison. Which it would have, sitting on store shelves next to boxes of the same number of tea bags which weighed more, in total. The jig would be up with the consumer. Greedy SOBs.

That’s how Grocery Outlet gets some of its stock. It’s how I got numerous bags of Chicken Soup for the Soul brand dry cat food at $15 a pop for a friend’s community cats a few years back — when it went from 18 pounds per bag to 15 pounds. 

If you know your products inside and out and look alive, Grocery Outlet can be a gold mine. Looking alive means checking out odd packaging and getting to know their stock over time. If you see something you love but it goes away, it may show up again.

Back to the cheddar. Which is from one of the top cheddar makers in the US. My guess is it’s overproduction or odd sizes from Grafton’s perfectly-shaped vacuum-packed line. From the flavor, it’s older than a year, for sure, but not yet three. A major, major find.

Did I ever mention that I found bottles of La Tourangelle toasted hazelnut oil at GO for some crazy low price? It was about a month away from expiration. But so what? You store it in the fridge and you’re good for a couple years. That oil, some OJ, onion powder, chopped shallots and a little sugar and salt and you’re in business with roasted Brussels sprouts.

Grocery Outlet is an adventure, I tell you.