Artisan Pot Maker

Mar 16, 2025

What is your name and where are you from?

Morgan Baum, originally from Illinois but I live in Hutchinson, Minnesota now, about an hour West of the Twin Cities. (shown with co-owner, Ian Baum, and the future 3rd generation owner of the Clay Coyote, Elliott “Elle” Baum, if she wants)

What do you like most about where you live or what’s something interesting about where you live?

I love our Main Street, especially our Library Square. When people come to town, they always comment on how beautiful and preserved our Main Street looks.

The Library Square is the heart of town. There’s events all year round. Festive lights over the holidays, and year round art installations set with our historic Carnegie Library in the background.

Our pottery shop is just around the corner. Over the last four years there have been more than 20 murals put up in the community, the one on the side of our pottery shop, Clay Coyote, was created and painted by Zachary "Chilly" Chilison, Studio Potter, and part owner of the Clay Coyote.

What’s your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?

When I was 14, my mom and her boyfriend quit their corporate jobs to become potters. I thought they were out of their minds. But they followed their dreams, bought a farm in Minnesota, and started making and selling pots.

There was this little pump house where customers could shop on the honor system; grab a mug, leave 20 bucks.

I spent every afternoon and weekend helping out. As I got older, I knew I wanted to take over one day. So at 36, my husband and I moved back to buy the business.

We specialize in cookware pottery. We've developed a unique clay and glaze combination that allows our pots to go straight onto a gas, glass, or electric stove — or even the grill. Only a handful of potters in the U.S. make this kind of cookware, which really sets us apart.

In 2006, we published our first cookbook, and to celebrate our 30th anniversary in 2024, we released an updated version.

Currently, what are your income streams? Online, in-person, craft fairs, brick & mortar?

We have a retail gallery open 5 days a week. And a robust online shop which accounts for more than half our revenue. We have an Etsy shop to drive new customers. And we participate in two local festivals each year; the Minnesota Pottery Festival and the Minnesota Garlic Festival.

How have you grown the business to where it is today?

In 2017, we were featured on the local CBS station, WCCO, for their “Goin’ to the Lake” series. They came to Hutchinson to showcase many small, regional businesses. That put a big spotlight on our pottery.

Then I kept in touch with the producers and offered to cook live on their weekend program. It was a great way to show our pottery in action and now we go on the show 3 or 4 times per year. Last Saturday I was on making wild rice soup.

We’ve also had great success being featured by Forbes. They selected us as “best home cookware for home cooks” two years in a row. And last January, the Star Tribune’s Taste section did a front page story about our pottery. None of these are paid ads. They’re all earned media, word-of-mouth.

We do use traditional advertising, but our greatest drivers of new customers have been being featured in the media.

What is your favorite product and what makes it special to you?

That’s such a hard question. I love them all. But if I’m forced to choose, I always pick the Cazuela. It’s got the high sides of a saucepan, it’s got the wide bottom of a skillet, and it has the short handle like the grill basket. It’s perfect for starting items on the stove and finishing them in the oven.

If you could go back, would you do anything differently?

Of course, there’s tons of little things that I’d change, but honestly, I am so thankful to the team, to my family, and to our customers … I wouldn't change a thing. It’s the hard times that build character.

What are your goals for the future?

We want this year to be when we reach a national audience through the media. We want more people to learn about cooking with clay. And we’ve dubbed 2025, the year of the video. We want to use more visual tools to engage new audiences.

What platform and tools do you use?

Our website is on Word Press. Our online and retail sales platform is Square. We primarily use UPS for shipping. For social media we use Facebook and Instagram, but we are looking to expand our TikTok and Pinterest audiences.

Our newsletter is on Constant Contact and we have about 11K subscribers. We send out an email every Wednesday, and resend to any non-openers on Saturday. We’re pretty proud of our 43% average open rate—our customers regularly write to let us know that they really enjoy our communications.

Do you have a favorite motivational quote, cooking/baking recipe, book or podcast you’d like to share?

I’m sharing a couple excerpts of my favorite recipes from “Cookin’ with the Coyotes: Friends in Your Cupboard” … breakfast, dinner, and a dessert.

Barbara’s Egg Strata

Each year, the night before Christmas, we make this strata so we can put it in the oven in the morning. We all chip in and throw this together, it’s a family affair. Now, I share this recipe verbally almost daily at the Gallery. The first time we made it we followed the recipe from Deb Perelman in Smitten Kitchen, but over the years it has been modified with local ingredients. I used our Clay Coyote Flameware so I could start it on the stove and finish it in the oven.

I really dislike soggy bread. It’s one of my many endearing quirks. But I love this dish.

Ingredients:

8-10 eggs beaten

1 cup milk or cream

1 tablespoon dijon mustard

2 cups day old bread, cubed

½ onion, diced

8 ounce frozen spinach, drained

(optional) 8 ounces shredded cheese, any kind, we like gruyère or fontina

(optional) 1 cup meat (bacon, ham, or sausage)

Salt and pepper

Olive oil

Pottery Used: Flamware Cazuela or Flameware Savory Pie Dish; Whisky Bowl

Process:

Sauté onions and spinach in oil, if you’re using a meat sauté it along with the onions and spinach.

Beat eggs, milk, mustard, and salt/pepper.

Spread cubed bread out, spread spinach and onion, and pour egg mixture over.

If you make it the night before, which we recommend, take it out of the fridge for about an hour to let it come to room temperature before putting it in the oven. That gives the custard a great place to start in the baking process.

Bake for 60-75 minutes in a 350 F oven. The top will be lightly browned and when jiggled and the middle doesn’t move a lot. You can also use a thermometer to check the temp, it is done when it reads 160 F.

Remove from the oven and let it set for at least 10 minutes.

Chicken Tagine with Preserved Lemons, Olives, and Thyme

On our honeymoon we rented a car and drove more than 700 miles over three weeks across Western and central Morocco.

We started by making a friend in Casablanca and sharing a home-cooked meal. We traveled to the Atlas Mountains and took a tagine cooking class in the middle of nowhere.

We got lost in the souks of Marrakech. And we ventured down to Legzira where we saw stunning coastal landscapes. We spent a night in Mirleft where we had the single best meal of my life. And at the end of our trip, we wove our way back up the coast to the artist community of Essaouira.

Morocco was a food lover's paradise, the culture was captivating, the people were kind, and the scenery was spectacular. I’ve said, “I left my heart in Morocco,” but that’s not true. I carry the experiences of that trip with me everyday and I’m a better person because of it. Shukran.

Ingredients:

1 clove of garlic

1 teaspoon Paprika

½ teaspoon ground ginger

¼ teaspoon Turmeric

¼ teaspoon ground cumin

¼ teaspoon kosher salt

¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

2 tablespoons of olive oil

6-8 chicken thighs

1 tbsp chopped thyme, divided

1 preserved lemon (or 1 tablespoon preserved lemon paste)

1 cup green olives (with pits)

½ cup chicken broth

Pottery Used: Flameware Tagine

Process:

Make the spice mixture by combining together garlic, paprika, ground ginger, turmeric, ground cumin, kosher salt, and freshly ground black pepper.

Add olive oil slowly while stirring.

Coat the chicken in the spice mix.

Transfer the chicken to the flameware tagine and sear over medium-high heat for 1-2 minutes.

Turn the chicken over and add in the preserved lemons, olives, thyme, and chicken broth.

Cover and lower heat, cook on low for 45-55 minutes.

While it is recommended to leave the cover on, you may want to mix once along the way to ensure the chicken isn’t sticking.

Serve hot over couscous.

Wedding Cookies

In 2009, Ian and I were married on Forest Beach, in Chatham, Massachusetts. We were joined by 49 people and our dog. It was a beautiful, clear September day.

Everything about the experience was joining our two families together; and many of the little details were in honor of our family members that passed.

My bouquet was only three roses, the three varieties that won my grandfather the Queen of the Show at the Chicago Rose Society Show.

My “something blue” was a clay heart pin made by my godmother, Donna Ponne Wold. I carried and used my Nana’s hanky.

At dinner, we served wedding pie instead of wedding cake. One of the flavors was strawberry rhubarb because that’s the only dish Ian’s Grandma Shirley could cook well.

We were piped in and out by a bagpiper that was the student of Ian’s grandfather, Bill. We had chocolate stars to honor my Grandpa J and a dried flower frame for Ian’s Grandma Beverly.

On the back of the wedding programs was a recipe for Ian’s Aunt Gloria’s famous cookies.

From our well blended family, to yours, enjoy! Aunt Gloria’s Cape Cod Cookies a la Barbara.

Ingredients:

½ cup butter, softened

½ cup peanut butter

1 cup sugar

½ cup brown sugar

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup flour

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt