Congaree and Penn

What a cool operation. Visited the farm as part of the Slow Food Tour de Farm 2015, but I heard about them close to a year ago. Rice in Jacksonville! Who knew? We purchased some brown rice and I can’t wait to cook it at home! There are several «farm to table» type restaurants in town that are supplied by Congaree and Penn… it does my heart good to support local whenever I can!

We finally got to visit Congaree and Penn during the Tour de Farm. The new building is perfect for special events and looks out over the grape vines and rice fields. Very quiet and peaceful. The staff is warm and friendly. And the rice in all it’s many forms is just awesome to eat. And it feels great to know that it is local.

I was really excited to find out that Conagree and Penn was part of the Tour de Farm 2015. I was very intrigued to hear that rice was being grown here in Jacksonville and after trying the middlins at Orsay and Moxie, I was sold. We got to hear a lot about what they’re already doing at Congaree and Penn and some of their future plans (sake, various flavors of shrub drink flavors, mayhaw, tons of really cool stuff). We even got to hop on a hay ride and drive around the property.
The products they make are absolutely fantastic and the story behind them is even cooler. Make sure to keep your eyes peeled for them at RAM or other local markets!

This place is so cool. They sure didn’t have anything like this on the beach where I grew up. I saw their products in some of the better restaurants in town and thought «self you have to get some of this». So when I saw they upgraded their website I had to order a couple of things. I got me a shirt and some middlins t try out. So the delivery options were the snail mail or the farm pick up. Seeing that I was all over it. To the farm I go with my order with a invoice number of 2. When I got out to the farm Amy (owner#1) came out and greeted me with a Hi Mark. Scott (owner #2)was in the patty spreading the rice. Talking to both of them it was like they knew me for a longtime. The told me about their farm and their plans. They have some really good plans in the near future too. More patties, a big building, different things that sound so wonderful. I can’t wait to cook me up some middlins and go back for more stuff. This is so cool to have such friendly people running a farm. While I was there a fellow Unilocal Scout showed up. Yep, our very own Anthony N showed up with his 2 boys.