Today, like most days, Sara Jenkins is kneading pasta dough in the kitchen of her Rockport restaurant, Nīna June. While she works the dough to a smooth consistency, she tells the story of the wheat harvest in the Tuscan village of Teverina. “It was in early summer, and the men would take the combine from house to house, threshing wheat. The women would spend the whole day making pasta in the kitchen. At the end of the day, there was a big feast at long tables. And, I kid you not, someone would bring out an accordion,” she says, a little misty. Jenkins grew up in that tiny farming community, the daughter of a foreign correspondent and a food writer. The house in Teverina that her parents purchased in 1971 has now become an anchor for Jenkins. She makes every effort to return there at least twice a year, usually for the fall olive harvest. There are 150 olive trees on the property, and the fruit is pressed into a luscious green oil. She learned to make pasta from her next-door neighbor, of which she says with a sigh, “It was the tail end of a way of life.”

Rockport is a long way from Tuscany, but Jenkins has transported the food, and the mood, of her childhood to this charming trattoria overlooking the harbor. She and her son moved to Maine from New York City just two years ago, seeking a better quality of life and to be closer to family, including her mother, cookbook author Nancy Harmon Jenkins. The Jenkins family has a long history in the area, stretching back 13 generations, but Sara had never lived on the midcoast. She did, however, attend high school at Gould Academy in Bethel, her mother’s alma mater. Coming from Rome, she says, was “a tough adjustment.” “You couldn’t even get olive oil here in those days. I had to bring some with me, and I’d use the toaster oven in my room to bake a potato, then mash it up with the oil. Those were the flavors I was missing,” she says. After Gould, Jenkins moved to Providence to study photography at Rhode Island School of Design. But food was still an important part of her life, and she found herself working in kitchens. Even her senior thesis, a photographic essay on slaughterhouses, was related to food.

Her first break came when she worked at Figs, an acclaimed Boston restaurant. Jenkins stepped into the chef role when her friend Barbara Lynch moved on. She next cooked in Italy for four years before she moved to New York. Jenkins swiftly built a reputation at several restaurants there before opening two of her own: Porchetta and Porsena. Porchetta, built on the strength of a fabulous roasted pork sandwich, is now closed. But Porsena, a small pasta-centric place, remains open and extremely popular, with Jenkins overseeing it from afar. “I had the advantage of starting to cook in the United States when people were really interested in authentic Italian food, not Italian-American,” she says. Her style is simple, fresh, and seasonal, as you would find all over Italy in homes, small- town osterias, and city restaurants.

At Nīna June in late December, a farmer from Fine Line Farm in Searsmont arrives with a box of late-season chicories and arugula. Jenkins is able to coax maximum flavor from winter produce, turning ingredients like root vegetables into flavorful dishes. Mesclun, grown in greenhouses this time of year, is the basis for a simple but stellar salad with an herbed crème fraîche dressing. Segmented clementines and avocado are added, and a sprinkle of fried onions completes the dish. While she pulls the salad together, Jenkins talks with the two young cooks on her staff. She gives Darcy Dunn instructions for the squash on tonight’s menu. “Roast it until it’s close to being brown and soft,” Jenkins tells Dunn. “Then we’ll use some of that blue cheese butter.” She then turns to Adam Hahn, talking quietly about the mashed potatoes that will accompany the hanger steak. The two cooks set to work. The chef turns to her own prep duties, rolling out dough for a tarte flambé, then filling it with caramelized onions and crème fraîche. The dish is from the Alsace region of France, so I ask where it fits into the Nīna June menu. “I make food from wherever I find it and wherever I like,” Jenkins says. “Sometimes I make things once; sometimes I make them over and over again.” This winter, Jenkins has instituted Mediterranean Thursdays, an opportunity for her and the staff to stretch their boundaries. They’ve already covered Istanbul and Beirut, and a Night in Tunis is planned. The special event menu includes brik, a Tunisian street food made from a special type of puff pastry that encases an egg, herbs, and spices. “The response to the dinners has been great,” she says. “It’s a chance to bring some ethnic food to the area.” For ideas Jenkins turns to the many cookbooks that are piled on counters and shelves in the dining room.