Sarah Mislak Gentry, a Rosedale woman with a hint of Juliette Binoche in her profile, is an easy mix of Mediterranean Europe and Eastern Europe. On her mother’s side, Gentry claims Italy, Spain and Germany. Her father, David Mislak, brings a strong Polish heritage to the family.
» Serves 4 to 6
4 sprigs fresh thyme leaves, chopped
2 sprigs fresh rosemary leaves, chopped
1 tablespoon virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
2 chopped white onions, medium size
4 ounces center cut bacon, chopped
3 cloves fresh garlic, minced
6 cups chicken broth
2 14-ounce cans of small white beans, drained and rinsed
3/4 cup elbow macaroni or other small pasta shells
Kosher salt and ground black pepper
Grated parmesan cheese
» Cook pasta in salted water. Drain and set aside. Heat the oil and butter in a large soup pot. Saute bacon in same pot for about 3 minutes. Add onion and garlic and continue cooking until onion becomes soft. Do not allow garlic to burn. Add chicken broth, beans, and herbs. Cover and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer 15-20 minutes. Transfer one to two cups of soup mixture to a blender and puree until smooth. Do not overfill blender and be sure to secure lid as hot liquid will spill over if not tightly covered. Add puree back to the rest of the soup and stir. Season with kosher salt and black pepper to taste. Just before serving, stir in cooked pasta and heat for a minute or two. Serve with grated parmesan cheese as topping.
But in the kitchen, a place Gentry didn’t discover beyond a clean cereal bowl until she married and had a child a decade ago, her Mediterranean spirit stirs the pot.
This week it was pasta fagiole — known in Italian-American families as “pasta fah-zool” — which Gentry cribbed from Giada De Laurentiis’ “Everyday Italian” show on the Food Network and made her own.
“I made it (as a first course) for Thanksgiving, and everyone loved it.”
Pasta fagiole for Thanksgiving! Now that’s a bounty to be grateful for.
“I use white beans instead of her red beans and bacon instead of Italian pancetta [pork sides], and it was a hit,” said Gentry, who works behind the bar at Dead Freddies saloon in Hamilton on the weekends, making dinner for the family the rest of the week.
If the folks who run Dead Freddies know of Gentry’s cooking skills — her butternut squash lasagna is superb — it has yet to influence the sports bar’s burger and chicken wing menu.
And that’s just fine with Gentry, 29. Once an art history major at Towson University, the Mercy High School graduate has embraced cooking as a creative outlet in a way that would lose its significance if shared beyond the home.
“I try to make something healthy and different every day,” she said, noting that she stays away from baking and other preparations in which the process must be followed to the letter.
Thus, Gentry has little use for the “Fannie Farmer Cookbook,” published in Boston in 1896 as the first such volume to use precise measurements.
And thus, a Sundown Court pasta fagiole in Rosedale that is well on the “soupy” side as opposed to the thick, hard-to-separate-the-noodles-from-the-beans approach popular in other families.
“I never thought I’d be good at this until I had to do it,” she said. “Now that I have a husband and a son, it’s my creative thing — it’s all I can really fit in now — but I also consider it my job.”
Rafael Alvarez can be reached at [email protected].
