LA GRANDE — It’s a well-known fact that people love receiving food gifts.

Now, at Flying Cloud Gifts, 1102 Washington Ave. in La Grande, owners Amberlee Harder and Rocky Hunter are marking their first-year anniversary in business by expanding their gift line to include fresh, homemade bagels.

Hunter makes the soft, warm bagels in his home kitchen and sells them under the Flying Cloud Bagel Co. name. Customers may order their bagels online or call 541-398-1194 or 541-786-0179 and schedule a pickup time at Flying Cloud Gifts.

“We have cream cheese and butter packets for our bagels for now and plans to make flavored and plain cream cheese options from scratch in the near future,” Harder said. “We also sell small local homemade jams that pair well with a bagel.”

For the past year, Hunter has been developing recipes for cinnamon raisin bagels, plain bagels and sourdough bagels. Finally in late October, he started to sell them to customers under the brand name Flying Cloud Bagel Co.

“I enjoy cooking, and I like to create things and think outside the box,” Hunter said. “Bagels caught my interest because we truly can‘t find a bagel that comes from La Grande or anywhere else close by.”

Hunter has been dialing in his recipe for cinnamon raisin bagels. All his bagels are boiled in a water bath like traditional New York bagels. His recipe for cinnamon raisin is not over-the-top sweet, but more traditional. Hunter seasons his plain bagels with garlic herbs or parmesan.

“We’ll keep adding to what we’re offering and adding seasonal ingredients as they become available,” Hunter said.

The owners want to see how people react to their initial bagels first, and then respond to meet the demand.

Expanding their store

In addition to the new bagel products, Harder said that they have expanded their inventory into the rear of the building, almost doubling their store space.

“We’ve been working on it the past couple of months and completed it in October,” she said “Customers should come through our main gift shop entrance and walk through the doorway leading into the rest of the store.”

The expansion of their store has allowed Harder and Hunter to display a large inventory of gifts.

“We have filled it with Christmas inventory and everyday gifts,” Harder said. “We’ve made that kind of our Christmas room, but we also have small ornaments out year-round that people like to collect.”

The storefront has a lot of everyday gifts from stationery, to gift pens and journals, memorial-type ornaments, decorative mugs, and flour sack towels or tea towels. The Flying Cloud Gifts store will also feature local vendors and their products, such as Bob Jensen’s pottery gifts.

“We have Longbottom coffee that makes a good gift and bird houses that are covered in bird seed,” Harder said. “We have bird feeder items like solid bird seed that looks like an owl, bird seed Christmas trees and other gifts.”

The public is invited to visit Flying Cloud Gifts and see the expanded store. Store hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. During the holidays, Harder said the store will be open seen days a week after Black Friday.

For adjusted hours beyond the holidays, visit the store’s Facebook, Instagram, and social media site for further announcements.