Let Fun, Colorful Kitchen Tools Create Family Memories

Cindy Peterson sits down with Molly Hauge from Talisman Designs to explore the story behind one of the kitchen industry’s most joyful and innovative brands. 

Together, they discuss how Talisman Designs has spent the last 25 years bringing happiness into the kitchen through colorful, practical, and thoughtfully crafted tools — many inspired by everyday family moments. 

From crowd-favorite gadgets like Butter Boy and the adjustable pie shield, to creative solutions for bacon lovers and apple spiralizers, you’ll hear how these products are designed not just to make life easier, but to encourage families to cook, laugh, and create memories around the table. 

Tune in for heartfelt stories, behind-the-scenes insights, and a celebration of the small things that bring us joy in the kitchen.

Products featured in this episode:

Talisman Designs collection

For more thoughtfully curated joy, check out berryandbasil.com and follow the store for all the latest products, events and sales at @theberrybasil

Follow the show at @joycuratedpodcast (Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok) and make sure to subscribe to us on the podcast app of your choice. It helps us grow and share the story of all the brands we love. 

Transcript

Molly Hauge 0:01

There are so many there's so many things going on in the world that just bringing a little bit of happiness by having a blue-colored hot pad is just something small but so important.

Cindy Peterson 0:16

Welcome to Joy Curated. I'm Cindy Peterson, co-founder of Berry & Basil, a thoughtfully curated kitchen store in beautiful downtown Chamberlain, South Dakota. Here we discuss food, quality, and real life without the pressure to get it perfect. I have real, honest conversations with makers and product experts to talk about how things are made, how they're meant to be used, and how thoughtful choices can make everyday life feel more confident and enjoyable. So, Molly, Molly Hauge, I am so excited to talk to you today about one of the brands that Angie and I brought in to Barry & Basil from the very beginning, Talisman Design. And I just, I love chatting with you when we're at shows. And uh I love working with our rep here in South Dakota who always reminds me of the fun, fun things that you guys are coming out with every year. But tell me a little bit about yourself, tell me about the history of the company that you enjoy working for.

Molly Hauge 1:22

Sure. Thank you for having me, Cindy. Talisman Designs has been around for 25 years. It was originally started by a woman, Katherine Waymire, who was looking to, she was a product designer by trade, and she was looking to get out of working in a big corporation. And so she had already been creating things and she started taking her products. They were um picks originally. She started selling them and to local businesses around Minneapolis, and then it grew from there, and she uh started working with overseas factories and uh really grew her business. She owned it for the first 20 years, and I love that she made the the very pivotal or a very stronghold part of the company to her was working primarily with independent retailers like Barry & Basil, which makes the brand incredibly special because it was built and is continually supported by businesses like yourself versus big box stores. And she was able to work with so many independent retailers, especially independent kitchen stores, was her favorite, and they really shaped the business to what it is today. She also, along with working with independent retailers, she also worked with the really specialty kitchen retailers like Sur La Table and World Market. And so about six, five and a half years ago now, uh, she sold her business to the company I work for, Nifty Home Products, which is also a Minnesota-based company, based out of Madison Lake, Minnesota. It's a very small town right outside of Maine Cato. And when they bought the business or they were looking at um acquiring the business, they realized she had about 100 sales reps. And Nifty did not have a sales manager or they did work with a few sales reps, but their business was quite different. Nifty's business was really around K cup wire storage versus the specialty items that Catherine had created, but was looking to go in a completely different direction because that space for the K cup storage very much changed. And that's where I came along. So I have spent my entire career in sales and I am a born and bred Minnesota girl. I grew up actually in southern Minnesota. Uh, I have a lot of ties to South Dakota as well. So I always love hearing about your store, wondering how you're doing. And I'm honored that you guys carry our line.

Cindy Peterson 4:36

Well, I I love the story with Katherine and, you know, Angi and myself, that, you know, this is kind of the store is we always laugh. It's our midlife crisis uh retail project. Neither of us had any experience with retail. But I think the I when I I did not realize that the company was about 25 years old and uh the product line itself. And so when I think back and I realize, oh my goodness, I some of the first products I bought were the silicone flower trivets. I use them as hot pads, I use them for everything. I likely bought those in a small little gift store in St. Paul about 20, 23 years ago. And so I just love that, you know, a lot of the lines that we carry are things that we had in our own kitchens prior to us even opening Berry and Basil. And the the practicality of the products, but the cuteness of the products. And they make me smile and there's bright colors, and they serve an important purpose because why it has to serve a purpose if it's in the kitchen, but it's cute or pretty at the same time. So I love how she brought all of that together.

Molly Hauge 5:57

Yes, that is a pillar, also another pillar of our company is that our products bring joy back into the kitchen and also bring families together in cooking. A lot of our products are uh were created when she was raising her children and come from kitchen problems that she had when she was doing things in her kitchen with her girls. And we have uh we had carried that spirit on through the products that we have designed over the last five and a half years. But we pride ourselves on the not only our products being colorful, but our packaging, telling a story, making consumers smile, you know, that they can recognize that it is our product when they see it out in the wild. Which I think is so important in these days because there are so many, there's so many things going on in the world that just bringing a little bit of happiness by having a blue-colored opad is just something small but so important.

Cindy Peterson 7:11

And you, you know, I love again the the the story with her and and the kids and bringing kids into the kitchen. The the products are like the the butter boy and the butter girl, the corn knobs that are little characters that match that. So of course we're entering sweet corn uh loving season. Uh we can't wait till it's ready, and we're a few more than a few weeks away from that, but definitely excited for that. But those are the products that I think, oh, okay, I don't know. This is a little kitschy. Uh, you know, I'm gonna maybe not order more than the minimum amount. And they fly off the shelf because it makes people smile. And the kids say, Oh my gosh, we need this. And when your kid is excited about being in the kitchen or excited about eating a vegetable or anything else, it it brings even more value.

Molly Hauge 8:10

Definitely. That Butterboy and Buttergirl story uh that you're talking about, where the the corn picks are the butter babies. So Butterboy and Buttergirl got together and they have butter babies. Uh, that is probably the most well-known story about our company. Butterboy continues to be one of the products that if consumer that I meet randomly in the world knows about our company, it's through um Butterboy. So he's really fun. His his time to shine is coming. So we're really, we're really ramping up for that.

Cindy Peterson 8:51

I love that. I uh, you know, the other thing that I when I was getting ready to chat with you, the the pie line and the pie baking, uh, which I think that's a trend that uh has come back and is here to stay just because we're really looking for the things that made us happy and when grandma made pie. And so I was looking at the adjustable pie shields, and I believe we have sold over 175 of those in our store since we opened. Wow. It's the product that we I kind of I was like, okay, 175 people. It doesn't seem like a lot, but that's a lot for us for one product. It is likely our highest selling per unit item in the store.

Molly Hauge 9:38

Wow.

Cindy Peterson 9:38

And I realized I'm out of it when I was looking at my numbers too. So that's good news for you guys. We need to place another order. But I I love that it is, you know, it's this bright red, it tells a story, but it solves that problem that everybody has where we don't have to get foil out or we don't have the tin that is not adjustable size to the different pie pans that we carry. And and it is, you know, it is, you are able to take it off easily in the oven to get that final browning touch. So yeah, so the pie line, the story behind that where it's all kind of themed items, how does that work?

Molly Hauge 10:20

So when I joined the company, I was told that the adjustable pie shield carried the company for 15 years. So I was like, what is this item? Because I prior to joining the company, although I love eating out and going to restaurants and I love cooking, I am not a baker. And so I when I saw the product itself, I was like, this is what carried the company. But here, let me grab it quick. Because the the fun thing about this product is the packaging, it's got a very 1950s housewife feel, and we carried that packaging uh design through all of the products that we have created to build around Pie Shield. So that particular product was our first number one seller. It went into major retailers first, and so it just made sense for us to also do a creative way of products that that decorate a pie or you use to solve different pie baking issues. And that's really where it was created. And also one of the things that we always want to do if we can is make sure that it's easy to clean. So you don't spend a lot of time soaking the item, you know, having to use multiple tools to clean it, because our goal all the time is to create product that has multifunction and is easy to clean and makes people smile. We created uh different things like cutters to cut strips that are in a wheelhouse that are very easy to use, a decorator that you just roll around the edge of a pie, um, pie weights that are connected versus individual so that you can just grab one end and pull it all out versus having to gather 30 little pie weights. You know, a pie top cutter that uh cuts a design into the top, but it's symmetrical, so it will only take up half the space of most uh pie top cutters in your cupboard or your drawer. And we really used our partnership with kitchen stores uh to understand what was needed in the marketplace, and um, that's really where that line grew. And you're right, when you say that pie baking is becoming popular again, two years ago, our sales on a direct-to-consumer study that we did were up 400% in just the pie shield. So ever since COVID happened, everyone is trying to do more things at home and really create that experience and uh around not only the joy of cooking with your family, but cooking for others. And pie is a great way to do that. Along with that, our sourdough baking tools also have seen just as much growth. So our whole baking collection has really grown leaps and bounds, especially in the last four years.

Cindy Peterson 13:47

And that it just blows my mind because again, I am not a baker either. So I feel like that's yet another thing that you and I have in common is I love to cook. Uh, baking is a little bit daunting to me. I have to measure, I have to pay a little bit closer attention to things. Apparently, my uh my attention span is needs a little bit of work. Uh and so I do uh right. I and I just like throwing things in, and and one of the flavors that I think is a consistent will this flavor work with whatever, you know, my vegetables or that type of thing is bacon. And bacon is the other line of products that I laugh because it's like, okay, I can carry a regular little bacon fat store, grease store, or I can carry yours that is super cute with a little pig on it, and I sell those 10 times over versus just the practical looking little canister to sit next to the stove. So the bacon line, what was the inspiration behind that?

Molly Hauge 14:55

The original inspiration was creating a product that was fun and that was original to the market. So, like you said, there were canisters out there that were available. And let's be honest, most people use a coffee mug, a tin can, something that they dump grease into, which is what I always used also. However, the environmental you know repercautions of that is a lot because now you're not recycling those items, you're throwing them in the garbage, and then they're going to the landfill. And so our silicone bacon bin, which let's just give him his little cute moment. I know he's so fun. He's so cute. He is silicone, so he it's very easy to pour your grease inside of the silicone container. This is a little strainer if you're gonna keep your grease, which the majority of the country keeps their grease and uses it for cooking. I was not raised like that. I do use it now that I've heard because everyone has told me what they use their bacon grease to cook with, or cook what they cook in their bacon grease, which sounds delicious. But you just pour your baking grease inside your bacon bin, and then if you're gonna store it, you just put the cap on it, you put it away, you leave it on your counter. If you're gonna throw it away, uh this is a very easy way to let the grease solidify by putting it in the freezer or in your fridge, and then it just pops out when you're done with it. And then this is super easy to clean up again and reuse over and over and over again. So that is kind of the inspiration of Bacon Bin. When I joined the company, believe it or not, we only had bacon bin. He was it, he was our number one seller, had been for 10 years. Uh, he was very famous. If he ever went um, if our products go into end up on a TV show or in a news segment of some sort, it's usually bacon bin. But now we have we created a second option which holds two cups of grease for people that use a lot of it or keep it for storage. Um, but we also created uh an expansion in this line of products that you would use to cook bacon. So we have a mat that goes in the oven because that has become very popular, versus just lining a cookie sheet with tin foil and laying your bacon across it, uh, a microwave tray with a cover. Uh, and then we also have a splatter guard with bacon bin space as the splatter for your stovetop. Uh, we also have a bacon tongue, and this year we launched a spoon rest to kind of build out around it because, you know, that product has seen so much success that retailers were constantly asking for what they just wanted more, more so that they could build out a really nice merchandising piece around different holidays and you know, and just different selling seasons that bacon is popular in.

Cindy Peterson 18:24

So I think we're hitting all of the major food groups. I I think we've hit sourdough, pie, bacon, I think it, and corn. And so then we get into some of the other tools that we started carrying was right off the bat was the Apple spiralizer. And the the the uniqueness of that where it cores it, it it spirals it. It's not, you know, it's a hand uh very cute little tool. But we had a customer that I think it was probably a three or four-year-old at most, that she posted a video of her son using the apple spiralizer, and this was about five years ago. And we just love that first of all, he was spiralizing his own apple. She was thrilled, cutting it into thin slices, so it was, you know, she still cut it into smaller pieces, but but the slices themselves were super thin, so it could be used either for apple pie baking or eating. And and then some of the other fruit tools that I think are so family friendly with the grape slicer, which we think, okay, really, you could just get a knife and slice a grape. But if you want your kid to be able to slice their own grapes and have it safe, that's been huge too. It's so fun.

Molly Hauge 19:49

And that product directly came from consumer feedback. Consumer feedback to their favorite kitchen store, their favorite kitchen store told their sales rep or called me directly or talked to me at a trade show and said, we need a grape cutter. And you know, we we worked with our sales team and our consumers and our favorite kitchen store to understand what would make that product most useful for a mom. And every, you know, we got all sorts of feedback, and that's really what created the product itself. That's what I love about our company is that it's not just one person thinking, okay, I think this is a good idea. Uh, we're gonna move forward with this. It's gonna be my idea only. It's we use a very collaborative effort in talking to not only our sales team, but uh our kitchen stores and uh consumers alike. And so yeah, the grape cutter was built around creating that need that was out there for especially moms that needed to cut grapes in half. But we also built it with in the cap of it, there is a uh a little built-in stand. So you can also place grapes inside of the cap and cut it for maybe unsteady hands, you know. So grandmas and grandpas can also help, you know, cut up grapes and not feel like they're going to injure themselves by cutting with a knife.

Cindy Peterson 21:31

Yeah, oh gosh. There's so many things that uh we think, okay, they're gadgety, but when they make our life easier or they allow more people to be involved. Uh I think it's everything that Angie and I built the store on with uh bringing everybody into the kitchen and having fun and enjoying each other and enjoying the process. What is your favorite product? What's the product that you Use the most in your own kitchen?

Molly Hauge 22:03

Hands down my hot pads. Just like you, Cindy. As soon as I brought them into my kitchen, usually you'll find a hot pad somewhere on my counter because it can also be used as a trivet and a jar opener. I also use it as a spoon rest because let's be honest, they're silicone, so they can go right into some soapy water or they can go into your dishwasher. So that product I use all the time. I also use my ginger slicer and grater. Ginger is one of those products, produce products that is really hard to manage. Anyone that has ever tried to grate ginger knows that grating your fingernails and your knuckles are a thing. And that grater does just a beautiful job of grating, slicing, peeling uh ginger. I use our kale stripper a lot. I'm a huge cilantro fan. So I put cilantro in almost everything. And you know, getting it off the stem, what that our kale stripper does is it has lots of individual holes for different types of stemmed products or uh stem produce. And so you just pull it through, it takes the leaves off, so then you can chop it up. So those would probably be my top three that I use. Along obviously with along with our spatulas and our beechwood utensils, which is our our beechwood wood line. Um, those are things that I use on a pretty regular basis as well.

Cindy Peterson 23:51

Yeah, you know, with the kale stripper and and that's something that I did not realize, you know, of course, South Dakota, Minnesota. We always laugh about our our salads and how they're jello or pasta, not so much vegetables all the time. And so when we people have said, I don't like kale. Well, we're maybe we're chopping the kale and eating the stem. Well, that's the most bitter part of the leaf, you know, of all of that. And so stripping those leafy vegetables off of that stem is not something we are used to needing to do with iceberg lettuce and different things that we're a little bit more accustomed to. So yeah, I think that's that's kind of our maybe a great takeaway for somebody that's like, I don't like leafy vegetables. Well, right, you don't necessarily need to eat that bitter, hard stem. And that's the easiest way to get that off, is with that herb stripper or that kale stripper.

Molly Hauge 24:52

You know, you can go and explore different parts of your grocery store when you have the right tools or you have tools that have multi-function that maybe you haven't tried before because you just didn't have a tool at home that would help make that easy. Also, I believe with the huge growth in farmers' markets and at the farmers market, the one here in the town that I live in, they have one stand of just every kind of leafy green you can even uh imagine and and any herb. And it's just so fun to be able to like think about how would I what would I use this for, how do I clean it, how do I use it, how do I chop it up? And having those tools in your kitchen is very easy because they are very, very popular now. The kitchen gadgets of the world have really grown leaps and bounds since I was a kid. But even, you know, it's just it's so fun to be able to walk in and not feel intimidated at a farmer's market or a grocery store because you have the right tools. And you know, having great kitchen stores like yourself around where then, you know, if you don't have what you need, stopping into your store and saying, hey, I bought this head of Swiss chard, what do you have for, you know, making using it easy? Or do you have any favorite recipes? Or, you know, I love kitchen stores. They're like, I've always they've kind of always been my calm place where you can go in and you just can learn. It's just a whole absorption of learning about different ways of cooking, different utensils, different recipes. Two of my most prized possessions is I have both of my grandmother's recipe boxes because that used to be one of my favorite things to do and still is, is just to go through and read recipes.

Cindy Peterson 27:07

Same. Oh my gosh, same. I just got one of my grandma's, uh, another one of her cookbooks, and it has, you know, all the cutouts from the magazines and all of that tucked inside. And it's just like a little treasure trove of what the crazy diets were in the 50s and 60s, but also just her handwritten notes on them. And it's just so much. It's so fun. But, you know, the the things that the ingredients that were so common that we stepped away from in a way because, and now they're, you know, it's kind of like the pie making. It's it's back to those traditional uh ingredients and the tools that that help us learn. But I, you know, the kitchen store experiences I initially had were with my grandma as well. And I think about all the tidbits of uh, you know, the treasures of advice that she gave me. And I remember when we saw each other in Chicago this last time, we had we chuckled about our shoes and comfortable shoes and how important it was for us standing all day and walking all day in this huge convention center. And I said, you know, my grandma used to always say that a girl needs two things, a great fitting bra and a comfortable pair of shoes. Because if either of those two things are not working for us that day, our entire day is ruined. So then I learned your expertise, and I chuckled, I said this is maybe a little into the weeds, a little bit. Some of your previous sale experience is very vital. So what did you learn in your years in the selling bras really in the comfort of them and taking that into the kitchen product industry?

Molly Hauge 28:56

That is so funny that you asked me that. Well, uh, here is probably the biggest thing. Most now, this is a very true statistic. Like 95% of all women are wearing the wrong size bra, right? And so that is always the constant thing you're trying to achieve is well, what is my size and is it gonna be comfortable? And what what do you what what do you need to have the right fitting bra? It's kind of that with kitchen gadgets too. You know, what do you need in your kitchen to be able to make your life easy and uh comfortable and for it not to be a challenge, and having the right tools that fit your lifestyle and the way that you cook and the things that you enjoy are are a really easy way of making your life easier as well, and keeping you comfortable just in the day-to-day.

Cindy Peterson 30:01

Right. And whether it's I so many people come in and say, I don't cook, and it's the fun products that they realize, oh, I do cook. I it's just not a a full course process. Everyone cooks because everyone eats. And and so the products that we carry with you guys make that fun and uh casual and real. I mean, yeah, just realness. Yeah.

Molly Hauge 30:33

I love it because you know, when people come into your store or they meet me at a trade show or, you know, I'm visiting a customer, they think that we're like gourmet chefs that we've been to cooking school. Oh no, we haven't. We just adapted and used the resources around us to be able to cook the things that we love. I oftentimes cook things and give them to others because that brings me joy. So it's all about finding your joy and you know, finding those things, those kitchen gadgets, those a good pair of shoes that are gonna help bring you personal joy in your life as well.

Cindy Peterson 31:17

I love that. I just think we can end right there just because it's perfect. It's the it's the berry on top of of keeping things fun and simple and real. And I just love chatting with you every time I get to see you, Molly. You too, Cindy.

Molly Hauge 31:32

Um, it's such a treasure when I get to see you.

Cindy Peterson 31:36

Thanks for spending time with me today on Joy Curated. My hope is that something from this conversation helps you feel a little bit more confident, a little bit more curious, and a little bit more at ease. Whether you're cooking or simply gathering around food with someone you love. Make sure and check out Barryandbasil.com or join us in the store to check out more of the thoughtfully curated products to support you in the kitchen. This show is written and hosted by me, Cindy Peterson, and produced by my amazing friend Kasey Brown at Teal Hat Communications. So until next time, take care.