Margie Raimondo

Agrarian Storyteller, Chef, Author, Educator & Filmmaker

Margie Raimondo is an agrarian storyteller, chef, author, educator, and filmmaker whose work explores the connections among food, agriculture, heritage, culture, and place.

She founded Urbana Farmstead in Little Rock, Arkansas, an urban farm and teaching kitchen where she grows food, preserves traditional culinary skills, and creates educational experiences that reconnect people with the origins of what they eat. Her work spans regenerative agriculture, food preservation, Mediterranean foodways, heritage grains, and culinary education.

Through The Grain Keeper, Raimondo is building a seed-to-table initiative focused on preserving heritage grains, supporting regional agriculture, and restoring the relationships among farmers, millers, bakers, cooks, and communities. Her work reflects a belief that preserving food traditions also preserves agricultural knowledge, cultural memory, biodiversity, and a sense of place.

Her professional education includes food preservation training through the University of Georgia and studies in viticulture, enology, and olive oil sensory evaluation through the University of California, Davis.

Raimondo is the author of Mangiamo and Finding Your Path – Trovare La Tua Strada. She also directed the award-winning documentary The Soul of Sicily, which reflects her longstanding interest in Sicily’s people, agriculture, food traditions, and cultural heritage.

As a cultivator of seed, story, and the shared table, Raimondo brings together farming, cooking, education, writing, and storytelling through her guiding philosophy, From Soil to Soul — the belief that food is never simply something we eat; it carries history, memory, culture, and the story of a place.