Ginger’s Kitchenware: Central Oregon Culinary Oasis

Ginger’s Kitchenware is located in Bend, Oregon, a small town in Central Oregon that has a growing population aided by tourism and outdoor enthusiasts. Maybe you’ve never heard of it. It’s an unexpected place to find international chefs making it a travel destination just to share their culinary expertise, but the husband and wife team behind the store have made it exactly that. Bend has become a tourist destination in the last 10 years, attracting outdoor enthusiasts for actives like skiing, cycling and fly fishing, as well as attracting professional athletes to the central Oregon region for training purposes. Bend boasts over 23 micro breweries and Oregon has no sales tax, further making it a draw for visitors from surrounding states to come and shop.

The store has had a presence in Bend for over 30 years, having previously been owned by another husband and wife team before the Jaime and Ginger Aguirre took it over in 2007. The couple moved to Bend after corporate careers in telecommunications and deciding that they no longer wanted to let work dictate where they lived. They changed the name to Ginger’s Kitchenware and narrowed the focus from kitchenwares and more to hone in on just kitchenwares.

“We always had kind of this nagging thought that work in the food world might actually better suit our needs,” says Jaime. “When we moved to central Oregon we found that this little kitchen store was for sale, and we realized that was an opportunity to not necessarily work in the food world, but work in a related industry as a kitchen store.”

The top selling product categories for the shop are a definite reflection of the customer base, so it’s no surprise that being located in the Northwest region of the country, coffee products are a major selling point. Ginger’s Kitchenware happens to be Oregon’s largest retailer of Jura Capresso fully automatic coffee systems, a point which Jaime is proud of considering Bend doesn’t have nearly the population of say, Portland, Oregon’s largest city with a population over 600,000. Other top selling categories in the store include cutlery, with Shun and Wusthof being popular, and cookware, with All-Clad ranking as desirable among customers seeking quality made in America products.

The store also has a demonstration kitchen that’s a fully equipped kitchen in a loft area that seats 20 and overlooks the store, is also used to test products before they are brought in as regular inventory. “I appreciate that there are a slew of people online who are willing to give you their opinions about products, but ultimately I am the one that needs to create – or our staff, needs to create – that direct relationship with the customer,” Jaime says. “Customers understand that we’re very methodical in testing products. Both Ginger and I are really involved in making sure that we’re handpicking products for the store based on our customer base.”

Jaime and Ginger have made it a point to develop a culinary program that includes what Jaime describes as culinary events, cooking classes that are a mixture of dinner and a show hosted by local, regional and national chefs. International chefs from Mexico and Italy have also presented demonstrations. “The experience of watching a demonstration and learning way beyond what’s printed on the instructions or the benefits that are printed on the box of a product. And so, we’ve crafted a demonstration program that over the past seven years has helped us in terms of being identified as central Oregon’s go-to place for high-end kitchenware,” Jaime says. “After working on this for the past seven years we’ve built a reputation. Not many people know where Bend, Oregon is and it’s a pretty small network of chef instructors who travel. So they begin to share with each other that Bend, Oregon and Ginger’s Kitchenware is a place you want to go to.”

Jaime teaches hands-on knife skills classes and demonstrates meals from Mexico, incorporating other areas of Latin America along with Spanish Mediterranean elements. He recently taught at The Cook’s Warehouse in Atlanta and uses that experience to help him provide the best experience possible for chefs visiting Ginger’s Kitchenware.

Recent events taking place in the last month at Ginger’s Kitchenware have included Gilberto Morales Briseño and Jonathan Picazo Rivera, chefs at Restaurante Nomada in the Guadalupe Valley Wine Region of Baja California, Mexico; with a menu featuring Hamachi with Salsa Verde and black eye pea “soil,” Rock Fish with Lavender Butter and farro “risotto,” Duck Breast with Baja Mole, and Lamb Cutlet with pine nut/acorn crust. Joyce Jue, an an award winning cookbook author, cooking teacher, food writer, culinary tour designer, and food consultant, led an event of Pan-Asian party foods with a menu of Crisp Singaporean-style Indian Samosa Pastries stuffed with curry potatoes, cauliflower and peas, Chinese Crescent Dumplings w/ chicken, shiitake, garlic chives, water chestnuts, Chinese Crispy Shrimp on baguette, and Mom’s Midnight Lo Mein Noodles with BBQ Pork.

This story was originally published in the April 2015 issue of Kitchenware News, a publication of Oser Communications Group.