Nourishing Body & Soul

Cultivating Culture with Margie Raimondo

By BY SARAH COLEMAN // Photos By CHRIS DAVIS

To understand author, filmmaker and entrepreneur Margie Raimondo’s love of the culinary arts, you have to understand the intersection of culture, family, farming and exploration in her own life.

The kitchen was the focal point of action in Raimondo’s childhood home. It was full of life, a place where family gathered and friends were fed. It was a place where she shadowed her grandparents and great-grandparents as they cooked, the place where her mother baked goods flawlessly and where her Nona taught her to can. A key place, holding her fondest memories, the kitchen is where Raimondo’s passion was lit.

“You’re never alone in the kitchen,” Raimondo said. “Everything you do in the kitchen allows you to invite someone back into your life. It might be when you’re making pasta for your guests, and you’re reminded of your memories on the stool kneading dough. It could be when you’re seasoning your food, and you’re reminded of your aunt’s special blend of spices.”

Farming was also standard in Raimondo’s childhood. In the diverse suburb of Lynwood, Los Angeles County, California, everyone grew what they could, and there was always a lot of food on tables throughout the neighborhood. Raimondo got her first taste of farming early on, raising rabbits and chickens on her family’s property.

Ever since coming to Arkansas as an adult, Raimondo has been an integral part of the culinary scene in the state by teaching classes, owning Urbana Farmstead, recently releasing her cookbook, “Mangiamo” and producing an award-winning documentary, “The Soul of Sicily.”

“Everyone in an Italian family thinks that they are the chef of the family. If you asked my family, my brother would say he’s the best, and my sister would say she is, but really, I’m the best,” Raimondo said, playfully. “Everyone wants to be the family chef, and we all love to cook. This is something that I think is probably not that different from a Southern family.”

In the predominantly Italian section of Los Angeles where she grew up, Raimondo said she was fortunate enough to learn how to cook from her family, who immigrated

Margie Raimondo preps food in her kitchen. Raimondo is a chef, author, filmmaker and urban farmer in Arkansas. from Italy. On her 16th birthday she was given her very first pasta maker, which she still uses today. Meals were highlighted by lively conversations, including lots of discussion around planning for the next meal.

Among the things she loves most about cooking is its time-traveling nature, allowing her to make new connections to those remembered from the past.

“It all starts in Nona’s kitchen. I spent so much time in my grandparents’ and great-grandparents’ kitchens, learning from them. My mom was a phenomenal chef in her own right, and she could not fail at baking,” Raimondo said. “When you’re a child in an Italian family, you cannot wait to be tall enough to sit on a stool to make pasta with everyone. My fondest and many of my first memories are of making pasta.”

Fostering this culture, it is no surprise Raimondo would eventually go on to make a career in culinary arts, albeit belatedly. After graduating from Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas, she started her professional life in high tech. Raimondo traveled a lot early in her career, immersing herself in the local culinary culture of places she visited.

“Every time I would go somewhere, I would try to find a place to take a cooking class. I took a lot of classes and really enjoyed being able to identify different dishes in different cultures,” Raimondo said. “I found that you could really be in any part of the world, and all people would really be the same in the fact that they love to meet at the table.”

Leaving her first career, Raimondo embarked on a new journey. Eventually, she found herself in the Arkansas Ozarks in 2006, living in Mountain Home until 2014. In these years, Raimondo bought Blue Lady Resort and Raimondo Winery and taught cooking and canning classes. Throughout, she found the process of this career change incredibly natural, especially because food was so important in her culture.

In 2014, Raimondo set out on another adventure keen to her traveler’s spirit, packing up everything she owned and moving to Italy and southern Spain for 16 months to participate in Farm Away, a program that encourages sustainability through local organic farming.

During the program, Raimondo worked six hours in the field and six hours in the kitchen. Sinking into the farming and culinary culture of these locations, she gained hands-on experience in the farm-to-table process. This experience was similar to her own childhood, however in a rural setting as opposed to the urban farming she was accustomed to.

“I learned a lot about the preservation of food at this time. It brought me back to my early days in L.A. because it was such a similar experience,” she said. “This really sparked my interest in the commitment

“The goal is not just to eat – it’s time for family and friends to converse and enjoy each other’s company.”

of these farmers, their tradition of family and creating really good food. This taught me so much about how people lived off the food that they were cultivating.”

After her time in the program, Raimondo moved back to Arkansas, this time planting herself in Little Rock. Inspired by her recent quest, she was determined to return to her urban farming roots, and in doing so created Urbana Farmstead, located at 2400 Kerrie Drive, with her partner, Chris Beaver.

“I had the USDA and the Natural Resources Conservation Service help me plat out my space. Then I applied for a grant to start growing food and expanding on the outside,” Raimondo said.

She also built a farmhouse kitchen inspired by those she’d spent time working in abroad. The kitchens in many of these homes had different stations, with meat and cheese locations different from the sweet ones. From her kitchen, she teaches others how to cook and can hosts private events and high tea on the farm.

The property perfectly aligns with Raimondo’s vision, connecting her further with her own heritage. Raimondo’s paternal grandmother, Susie Raimondo, instilled a love of food preservation in her family. In teaching preservation classes, Raimondo passes down her Nona’s wisdom and teaches valuable skills.

“I laugh now, but her lessons really shaped me,” she said. “I remember when she visited me once, we were driving down the highway, and she was shocked at the wild fennel growing. She was so in awe of the Finnochia, I had to pull over so we could pick the wild fennel, and we ended up cleaning it and cooking it.”

Nona Susie’s love of herbs inspired Raimondo, and this inspiration has translated into her own farmstead.

“When you come to my farmstead, you’ll see all kinds of herbs. If it wasn’t for my Nona Susie, I might be growing lilies right now instead of wild herbs, but she really inspired me,” Raimondo said.

While living in Sicily, Raimondo heard stories of the local farmers, some of whom had been cultivating crops for as many as five generations. In wanting to tell their stories, she flew back to Italy in 2021 with two videographers for 21 days to film “Soul of Sicily,” a documentary project she also wrote and directed.

“Making films is an intensely personal form of creating art for me,” she said. “Telling stories, infusing these stories is such a purpose for me. “Soul of Sicily” is a little bit more than just a documentary, it instills a sense of inspiration and a greater sense of purpose. It gives a voice to these beautiful people who are farmers and food producers, people who typically don’t have their own way to give a voice. I had this opportunity to give a voice to these families.” Urbana Farmstead is an urban farm located on Raimondo’s property in Little Rock.

“Soul of Sicily” tells the story of the people who live in the area, people who are dedicated to keeping their family traditions alive through farming, leading tours and creating restaurants. The documentary has won multiple awards at film festivals. Among them, Best Documentary at Andromeda Film Festival, Best Documentary and Best FirstTime Director at Abori Soulplace Film Festival, Best Documentary Short at Golden Lion International Film Festival and many others.

In creating her cookbook, “Mangiamo,” Raimondo also drew inspiration from her heritage and the heritage of other cultures she has experienced. While she grew up in an Italian household, Raimondo has always been able to differentiate the cooking of her mother’s Napolese heritage and her father’s side from Sicily. Both regions have distinct methods in the kitchen.

“Heritage in terms of cuisine is so different for my parents,” she said, explaining how food allows cultures to celebrate their uniqueness. “Sicily was conquered by multiple empires, and because of that, has a spice profile that is very different from Campania. Our foods from these different areas represent different cultures. The way people look, act and exchange with each other while cooking is expressed in so many different ways.

“Wherever you’re from, there are particular spices, herbs, processes and particular foods that celebrate your heritage. Food cannot be disconnected from culture.”

“Mangiamo” was released in November 2022 and serves as an ode to the celebration of culture, including recipes from her own family and travels. The cookbook is a collaboration of a life lived cross-culturally and places emphasis on the nourishment food has on our souls.

“Family plays a central role in Italian traditions; the meals are relaxed affairs with several courses and may take hours. The goal is not just to eat – it’s time for family and friends to converse and enjoy each other’s company,” Raimondo wrote on her website.

Ultimately, Raimondo’s goal in her work is to get people to pause as they eat and think about how the food on their plate is connected to a multitude of farms and the challenges facing the global food system, with farmers being the most fragile link in the chain.

“I hope that the one thing people gath- “Mangiamo” features Mediterranean er through my work is that I try my best recipes from her culture. to celebrate and revere the farmer, because without the farmer, we really wouldn’t have anything,” she said. “Farmers connect us to a really vast web.”

“Mangiamo” is available online at raimondostudio.com/mangiamo and on Amazon as of Dec. 10, 2022. “Soul of Sicily” can be rented on demand via Vimeo. For more information about Raimondo or Urbana Farmstead, visit urbanafarmstead.net.