Passport to Texas

This is Passport to Texas

Rhonda Cummins, coastal marine resource agent for Texas AgriLife and Texas Sea Grant, unintentionally became the de facto Seafood Cooking maven for her agencies.

04— I’ve got to admit: I may be the current maven, but I’m not the first.

She says Annette Hagen out of Rockport was Texas Sea Grant’s original seafood consumer educator.

11—And she created thousands of [seafood] recipes and we still pass them out today, They’re legendary.

But when Annette retired, they never refilled her position. So, years later, when Rhonda came along with an idea to help promote Texas fishermen by hosting seafood cooking demos, the baton was passed.

09— Now more than ever, we need to educate the consumer on their food choices. Not just know your farmer—it needs to be know our fishermen.

Rhonda teams up with colleagues from Texas Parks and Wildlife, Texas Sea Grant, and members of the community to demo seafood cookery.

22— Because a lot of people are intimidated [by] seafood. They have this impression that it’s hard to cook. Some people view it as a little pricey; they think it’s only for special occasions; I don’t want to mess it up… But if you can master just a couple of quick easy [techniques] in the kitchen, you can cook seafood at home. And it’s so much cheaper [than restaurants], so much healthier, and it supports my local fishermen.

Demos are free; we’ll tell you more tomorrow. The Sport Fish Restoration supports our series and the work of Sea Center Texas… The Sport Fish Restoration program supports our series.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.