Burr Ridge Resident Loses Job, Finds Her Way

If losing her job as a marketing executive at a publishing company wasn't enough, one week later, Harriett Barry's husband was hospitalized with a blood clot. Three months after that, her mother was diagnosed with cancer.

The resident had lost her job the week before Super Bowl Sunday in 2007 when the company she worked for was sold. After her husband came home from the hospital, she spent the next year caring for her mother. Doing so left little time for anything else, including her job search.

"I think my lowest moment at that time was when I was taking care of my mom, and I realized that I couldn't apply for unemployment anymore, because I was not actively looking for a job," said Barry. "A lot of people would have just lied, but I believe honesty is paramount. Be completely honest in all circumstances, and [God's] going to take care of me."

During that time, Barry started baking as a stress reliever.

"Cooking has always been therapy for me," said Barry. "When the stress got really bad, my family knew a good meal was on the way."

She started bringing pies she baked to her daughter's swim club gatherings. Parents often would bring baked goods to sell at events. Soon people were asking where they could buy her pies.

Starting a new career

When her mother passed, it was time for Barry to start thinking about the next step in her life. She spent some time soul searching and asking herself, did she want to go back to the corporate world? She thought about what had given her happiness during the past year and realized how much she enjoyed baking.

"I didn't really want to do anything else, and it was my chance to reinvent myself. I prayed about it a lot," said Barry, who said she asked herself more than once whether she could really make a business out of her hobby.

Barry said that it seemed as though the phone would ring every time she began to debate deeply about the decision.

"Someone would call and say, 'Wow. This is fabulous,' and it would be such a great encouragement," said Barry. "The encouragement that I got from a lot of people really helped my decision about doing it."

Barry took a leap of faith and applied for a business license in 2008, naming her company, "It Tastes Like Love."

She began selling her mini pies, or "pie-lettes" as she calls them, at local farmers markets such as Burr Ridge's Market on the Green.

"That's when people started calling me the pie lady, and we began selling out," said Barry.

Growing the business

Barry eventually moved her operation out of her home kitchen and began renting space at the .

There, she fills commercial orders as well as individual orders online. One local restaurant chain, the Country House restaurants, which has locations in Clarendon Hills, Geneva and Lisle orders pies for all three of its locations.

"I was over at a grocery store called The Lemon Tree in Downers Grove when Harriett happened to be sampling there," said Dean Timson, general manager of the Country House restaurants. "I tried it, and it was unbelievably good. She explained that she was also selling pies at the farmers market the following Saturday. I went and bought a pie for myself to take home."

Timson said he began selling slices of Barry's pies at the restaurant for dessert. He said that although the pies were not on the menu, word spread about them, and the restaurants began selling three to four pies a day. 

"It's just that good. It's popular stuff, and people loved it," said Timson.

Timson said he even asked her to create a savory spinach and cheese pie especially for the chain, and the restaurants order a dozen different pies from It Tastes Like Love every week.

"She's a wonderful woman—very easy to deal with—very pleasant," said Timson.

Barry now sells several hundred pies a week out of the church and hopes to have a storefront someday.

Looking back, and moving forward

Although there were trying moments during her unemployment, Barry said she would not change anything about that difficult time in her life.

"My faith in God has helped me through some very low moments," said Barry. "And I was thankful that I didn't have to juggle a job while trying to take care of my family ... I got to bring [my mother] home from hospice and care for her in the last months of her life."

Barry continues to work hard in order for her business to survive in this economy, but said she is not afraid of facing challenges.

"The people who seem to live the most well, are the ones who surf the waves of their lives. It can be a huge wave, but you need to get in the curl and ride it and master it," she said.