Back to Basics Sick of the rat race? Embrace the simple life with a business that soothes customers' souls.

If you have ever been tempted to chuck the Palm Pilot, ditch the agonizing bureaucratic corporate meetings and ball up the sensible tie or pantyhose, you're not alone. Disaffected corporate types have decided to veer off the fast track and pave new paths to entrepreneurship. In doing so, they've found happiness in creating soothing businesses that nourish customers' refined palates and souls.

Unfulfilled as an investment bank chief of staff, Laure de Montebello quit the corporate world and joined the French Culinary Institute in 1997. "I loved the care and meticulousness required for chocolate work," says de Montebello, 38, who later became a French restaurant's pastry chef.

In 2001, she started Sans Souci Gourmet Confections with friend and former software consultant Angela Fields in Port Jefferson, New York. Estimating 2005 sales between $350,000 and $400,000, they recently won over Bergdorf Goodman. "It's a total lifestyle change," says Fields, 34. "We decide how busy we're going to be, how to market ourselves."