You can find preserved olives in any of your local grocery stores, but did you know that you can make your own flavored olives at home. We found a great market, Barbur World Foods (503-244-0670), at the corner of Barbur and Capitol Highway in SW Portland, where you can find raw olives and a recipe to preserve them at home. We met with Mirna Attar the owner and chef at the market to learn her recipe for preparing these seasonal favorites. Mirna is also the chef at Ya Hala Restaurant in SE Portland and is an excellent cook! Barbur World Foods is owned by her and her husband John and they carry lots of very unique and ethnic food products. Mirna started with the raw green olives. She cracked them so the skin was split. Then she soaks them for 3 days in water, changing the water twice each day. This water bath leaches the bitterness out of the olives. When the olives are ready she prepares a brine of ½ cup of canning salt to one quart of water. Place a slice of lemon at the bottom of a glass canning jar and place your olives on top of that. Pour in the brine mixture to cover the olives, leaving a ½ inch space at the top of the jar. On top of the olives and brine you will pour a layer of olive oil to create a barrier to prevent air from entering your olives and spoiling them. To create some interesting flavors you can also add peppers, garlic or fresh thyme to the jar. Cover them with a caning lid and let them cure for one month and then spoon them out and serve! If you want to print out the recipe and try it at home, here is a link.

Another item that we had the chance to see (and taste) were dates. Most people are used to the dark brown date that you see in your local grocery store. These are dark because they are ripened on the tree. We were able to taste some that were fresh from the tree and still on the stem. The ones that were pulled from the tree with the stems were actually picked at the peak of perfection and were a golden color. It was like eating pure sugar! These are just a couple of the unique items you can find at Barbur World Foods. If you are looking to try something new and different, you can’t go wrong at Barbur World Foods. If you are looking for a unique wine to go with your olives, check out their weekly wine tastings every Friday and Saturday afternoons. Find something new to fall in love with. It’s free and a lot of fun!

November is also Mum-vember at Lan Su Chinese Garden (503-228-8131). The whole month is dedicated to the chrysanthemum and they are celebrated with a cut flower display, educational talks and even plants for sale. One of the slogans for the Lan Su Chinese Garden is ‘never twice the same’ and a walk around the garden in November proves it! During the celebration you will learn about a lot of the lore surrounding mums. For over 2,000 years the Chinese have been growing and hybridizing these wonderful flowers. Did you know that the Chinese thought the chrysanthemum could give you long life. In fact there is one story of a lake in China that was surrounded by mums and if you were to drink the water from that lake it was supposed to give you 100 years of a happy and healthy life. That is why the Chinese would brew a tea made from the leaves of the plant and even made a rice wine with the leaves as well. Another part of mum-vember is the lotus boats that are on the lake at the garden. These boats are actually used to retrieve the seed heads from the lotus. These seeds are used in cooking, deserts and as treats. They are also having special chrysanthemum speakers and events throughout the month. There is something planned for every Saturday, so don’t forget to check the schedule on their website for more details. There are also a lot of plants that are showing off in the garden right now so stop by and enjoy the garden as well as mum-vember!

The fall is a time when people start to bake again and with the fall you need to have a good pumpkin recipe. Kyra Bussanich is a friend of the show and she offered one of her great Gluten Free recipes for us to try. In the past few years, gluten free recipes have become very popular, but a lot of them are really heavy and really dense. Kyra’s Bake Shop in Lake Oswego (503-212-2979) really bucks the trend! Kyra started the bake shop to help her deal with her Crohn’s disease. She is always working on new and different (and tasty) recipes and she brought out a Pumpkin Cupcake recipe to share with our viewers. She started by mixing eggs yolks and sugar in a mixer. Then she added oil to the mixture and then added her gluten free flour that also had 3-4 spices added in. Then the pureed pumpkin was added while the mixer combined everything. When she first started she had egg whites left over. She used those to make a meringue. Once the mixer was done she added about 1/3 of the meringue to the ingredients and folded that in by hand. Then she added the rest of the meringue. Once all the ingredients were combined we scooped them into a cupcake tray and baked them. Once they came out we allowed the cupcakes to sit for a little while to let them firm up and cool down. She topped the cupcakes off with a cinnamon mascarpone frosting. The cupcakes were incredible! If you want to try the recipe at home, here is a link, but we recommend that you stop by the shop and check out all their baked goods.

Now if you think you have seen Kyra before it could be because of Cupcake Wars on the Food Network. She has won it twice, with gluten free recipes!!! She has also developed a gluten free box cake recipe that you can find at certain stores around the area and through her website. She also just published a book called ‘Sweet Cravings’ that has a ton of wonderful recipes that you can try. Now you can be healthy and have a tasty treat at the same time!

THIS JUST IN… Kyra is involved in Cupcake Wars again! You can watch to see how she does this weekend, Nov 9th (and repeating on the 10th) on the Food Network!