ANNE SALE: Cooking in Nashville since 1997

Dirty Page: Shrimp & Artichoke Fettuccini

As meal coordinator for the Nashville Food Project, Anne Sale is a ninja in the kitchen, turning leftover breads and gleaned produce into healthful hot meals—like lentil and sweet potato shepherd’s pies chock full of vegetables—for the homeless and working poor.

But Anne didn’t grow up learning to cook. It wasn’t until she moved to New Orleans that she took an interest in the kitchen, even while working in banking.

“New Orleans was really where I fell in love with cooking because food is such a huge part of cooking down there.”

This recipe comes from a friend who was at one of Anne’s first dinner parties in New Orleans, and she still makes the dish on occasion today. But all facets of her background—from crunching numbers in banking to kitchen lessons learned along the way—have helped prepare her for the nonprofit work of the Nashville Food Project where she works with volunteers sometimes 12 hours a day to prepare creative meals and twists on staples like bread pudding (another New Orleans favorite).

“We were very middle class growing up, so there was no waste of anything. That’s why I often come up with bread pudding,” she says. “Trying to use what we have to make something that’s healthy and also within a decent budget—I love what I do because it uses the resources that we have.”