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Note: All this week, Simon Rose is our guest blogger for the National Writing for Children Center.

from children’s author, Simon Rose

It is crucial that your time machine, method or device, whether it is mechanical, magical or even supernatural, appears to be authentic and is easily believable in the mind of the reader. In my workshops on this topic at schools and libraries, the majority of children have wonderfully inspired ideas related to time travel, but some struggle to explain how their machines or methods actually function. They are also usually very clear on the way their character travels back in time, but have given little thought to the return trip.

In The Alchemist’s Portrait, Matthew is on a field trip with his school to the art gallery at the local museum. When he places his hand on the canvas of the portrait of Peter Glimmer, a seventeenth century Dutch boy, his hand sinks into the painting, like quicksand. He can also step through the frame and actually be inside the picture. From the inside, he can see the museum gallery he just stepped out of, complete with other museum visitors, although they are unable to see him. From the inside the frame is capable of showing images from all the different time periods wherever the painting ever existed in the past and just as Matthew can step into the painting from the outside, he can also step from the inside into any of the historical periods shown in the frame and travels back not only to 1666 but to the French Revolution in 1792, the American Civil War in 1865 and the Russian Revolution in 1917.

My website at h has a page devoted to The Alchemist’s Portrait, including the historical background of the novel, featuring the paintings that served as an inspiration for the story, and links to websites on the time eras Matthew visits and on the history of alchemy.

Stop by every day this week because children’s author Simon Rose will be our guest blogger here at the NFWCC starting tomorrow, today, Monday, June 30th through Friday, July 4th.

Simon Rose is the author of The Heretic’s Tomb, The Emerald Curse, The Clone Conspiracy, The Sorcerer’s Letterbox and The Alchemist’s Portrait.

Visit his website at www.simon-rose.com, where you’ll find book descriptions, author profiles, interviews, audio files of readings, book reviews, teacher and reader comments and more. Rose offers a wide variety of presentations, workshops and author in residence programs for schools and libraries, writing services for both adult and young writers and is also available for summer camps and children’s parties. He has a variety of creative services designed for writers, including editing, critiquing and manuscript evaluation. For the business community, Simon Rose offers freelance writing services, including website content and copywriting.

I try not to think about this too often, but at times it’s depressing to contemplate that a capital city with two universities can be home to a “Gourmet Guide” — really, next to what you can find on Chowhound, the only local guide to dining in Tallahassee — with a rating system that makes absolutely no sense.

Last week’s review of Liam’s should have afforded me some comfort. It’s a relief to see coverage of a restaurant that is not a chain (why does Outback even need a review — do Blooming Onions change that much city to city?), did not last update its interior in the Eisenhower administration, and hasn’t forged new records for critical health inspection violations.

Stiff’s language was even, for once, restrained — which is, believe you-me, a Good Thing. I have written on Chowhound how painful Stiff’s writing can be when the Dem’s editors (clearly distracted by the far more important business of reporting ad infinitum on FSU’s football team) let Stiff stain their newsprint with far too many of his sappy puns, down-home yucks, and windy references to The Good Old Days of forty and fifty years ago (you remember those days, when Jim Crow reigned and women couldn’t get credit cards on their own recognizance).

I won’t even quibble that his review of the actual food at Liam’s is scant on description, as is true with most of his reviews. His background in the industrial-strength hospitality business is evident in his focus on the setting and service (not bad things to address) and his brief, sensory-limited comments that a dish is “nirvana” or that the duck is “rose-pink rare.” (With duck, the first question is always is it rubbery.)

Nor will I dink Stiff, who comments on Liam’s commitment to healthy food, for failing to observe that one current discussion in the foodie world focuses on the environmental tradeoffs to shipping organic goods long distances — as in, flying in organic duck from upstate New York. Liam’s does feature many local foods; the pea shoots that graced my (local, sustainably-caught, sweet as sugar, fresh as a splash of ocean foam) sea bass grew somewhere between here and Thomasville.

Furthermore, with respect to environmentalism, Tallahassee is so far behind on its developmental milestones — the topic is still a big yawn to many in this area, where the unapologetic guzzling of energy resources can border on the grotesque — that Liam’s may have to simply serve a high-demand food such as duck if it’s going to compete with other top-drawer restaurants. I have had duck at a number of local restaurants (Urbane’s so far was the best), and it’s only my gradual interest in ethical, environmentally responsible dining that even has me raise this question.

I will even forgive Stiff for attempting to go foodie on us in his wine discussion while not realizing that despite their small but nice wine list — a fairly new turn at Liam’s — they welcome “BYOB.” They have no corkage fee, and will store and open your wine for you.

But then — for no reason stated — Stiff gives Liam’s four and a half “hats.”

Four and a half effing hats.

Liam’s is a restaurant that is in a completely different stratosphere from most of the — I must say it — crap in this area. Liam’s is often referred to as “big-city-good,” as in, if it were suddenly transported to Manhattan, it could stand proud next to many a restaurant of its ilk. (The lone pho house in Tallahassee is only Tallahassee-good — respectable for this area, just not in a league with big-city pho houses.)

You speak of Liam’s in the same breath as Avenue Sea (in Apalachicola) and Urbane, Sage, and Cypress in Tallahassee (Kool Beanz, Clusters and Hops, and Fusion often enter this debate as well, as do some very good ethnic restaurants, rib shacks, and breakfast or oyster joints).

But based on that ludicrous Gourmet Guide — a guide based on the singularly incomprehensible food rating efforts of Stiff himself — Liam’s is half a hat above Outback and The Melting Pot — two chain restaurants!

But then again, the Tallahassee Democrat’s Gourmet Guide is top to bottom a ridiculous mess.

Sahara — with its hand-rolled dolmas, meat or vegetarian — has three hats– just like Macaroni Grill. Meanwhile, my beloved Shell Oyster Bar has three and a half hats — right up there with Stiff’s rating for The Olive Garden.

In the “light meals” category, Jenny’s Lunchbox — a cute and tasty breakfast and lunch joint — has only three hats, while Crisper’s, a forgettable chain, has three and a half.

On and on it goes, no rhyme or reason.

I have tried in this discussion to steer clear of drubbing truly local restaurants. In food reviewing, one visit should never torpedo a local business. My sense is that local reviewing can focus on what’s great and good, and leave the rest to inference or at least, where a place must get reviewed, to unavoidable conclusions backed with extensive evidence. But let’s just say that I’ve dined at enough places on the list — some of which serve what I think of as The Food You Eat When You Go To Hell– to say without any equivocation that the “Gourmet Guide” is neither gourmet nor a guide.

Read Chowhound, ask around, learn about the area. We don’t have enough great places to eat, but we do have some, and they deserve your business. Just steer clear of the Democrat’s restaurant advice, or as happened to me far too often when I was very new here, you’ll get Stiffed.

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At first, when I couldn’t find a post I had made on Chowhound yesterday morning before I left for work, I chalked it up to my own sloppy surfing. I have been acutely focused on Friday’s talk, as many people from MPOW are coming, which I am finding very stressful to the point of frazzlement and hair-pulling (if I flub a talk 300 hundred miles from home, I can fly home and be done with it; but I see these folks every day).

But then I looked in the cache for Bloglines and found my own Chowhound post and the one that prompted it, in reference to this discussion of Urbane, a new restaurant in Tallahassee.

It’s not even the first Chowhound post of mine that has evaporated into the net-ether. Last week I linked to my review of the Shell Oyster Bar, and that vanished. I thought, well enough: they don’t want bloggers using Chowhound as a honeypot.

But what was wrong with the following posts? (Posting dates refer to Bloglines’ feeds, not to Chowhound’s timeline.) I thought we were having a smart exchange about the nature of expression with respect to food.

And how comfortable are we about living in a world where commercial enterprises calling the shots on intellectual freedom — with nary a word to the authors? Yes, I know they say they can do that — but is that the world we want to live in?

The other poster’s comment (sorry, I don’t remember who it was!), Tue, Feb 12 2008 4:35 PM:

“Coffee & Doughnuts” sounds lifted directly from The French Laundry Cookbook. “Coffee & Doughnuts” is one Thomas Keller’s signature dishes. It is one of my most revered and treasured cookbooks. IMHO it is one thing for a recreational chef to prepare something right from a cookbook, but for a “Chef” who is paid for his creativity, technique, and talent to plaguarize…I would expect more than that. I have followed previous threads on different sites and this topic of chefs plaguarizing has been thoroughly dissected. Bascially, is it right for a chef to put a dish on his menu, take credit for it, when it has been directly lifted from another chef. Take classic dishes for example; Nicoise Salad, Beef Bourgogne, Tarte Tatin, the list is endless. These dishes are constantly replicated, however a good chef will reinterpret. In this case the classic dish is actually a cup of joe with fresh doughnuts. Thomas Keller is world renowned for his whimsical approach to classic dishes. So is it fair for another “chef” to steal his dish, even though it was published in his cookbook (meant for the home cook)?

My response (Wed, Feb 13 2008 9:54 AM):

Well — this was not a cup of joe with doughnuts (which I would not have bothered with); it was a silky mocha semifreddo topped with cream — a fake frozen latte — served with doughnut holes, really very moist, hot quasi-beignets. So if the name is borrowed but the dish is reinterpreted, is that not acceptable? In the literary world, titles of books are not copyrighted; unless someone outright trademarks them in advance, they are not protected. I can’t present the text of Pride and Prejudice as my own, but I can certainly use that title and then whimsically write my own take on this classic. To me this is not “lifting” (let alone plagiarizing) but responding. Food is a conversation. Urbane’s chef replied to Keller, “This is how *I* see this dish.” That to me is not only legitimate but delightful. Riffing on other chef’s interpretations is a way of saying we are all participating in an ongoing discussion about cuisine. Urbane’s interpretation may well be conditioned by the idea that in Tallahassee, palates are far less jaded than in the Bay Area, and a local diner might be acutely disappointed by a dish that would seem cute or whimsical for the culinary Brahmins of the world. I appreciate your erudition here, by the way — I will probably never dine at the French Laundry, but it’s nice to find out that a local dish has more classic roots than I realized. I just hope we never find ourselves dining on “Lamb Shanks French Laundry — All Rights Reserved.”

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Note: this is the first of occasional reviews I’ll do about food in the Tallahassee region. I believe this region has a charm and sensibility of its own that could use new voices and champions. I won’t bother with chain restaurants — the local newspaper has those well-covered — and will focus on the best of local dining, from casual to top-drawer. Expect more reviews after Easter.

Every time I walk into the Shell’s restaurant proper — a small, plain, windowless room, maybe seating 50 at best — I’m struck by two things: the clean ocean fragrance of ecstatically fresh oysters, and the excellent service. I always feel welcome and I never feel neglected or rushed, whether it’s me and two guys at the oyster bar on a quiet rainy afternoon, or it’s lunchtime on game day, and half of Tallahassee is packed in the Shell with their eyes glued to the two TV sets always set to sports channels.

Eating our local fish and produce makes better sense environmentally than eating food trucked around the country, and when I dine at the Shell, I’m supporting everyone involved in our local food chain, from the people who pull the fish from the water to the shuckers at the Shell, who can open several thousand oysters per week. I also appreciate knowing where my food came from, and I enjoy the historical continuity of dining in a local institution that has been serving food for over sixty years.

But I particularly adore dining at the Shell because the food is so exquisitely fresh — not “fresh” the way a bag of lettuce from Publix is fresh, but really, truly fresh, as in caught no later than yesterday.

I enjoy their oysters fried, either as a lunch special with hush puppies, beverage, and two sides ($6.75) or in an “oyster burger” sandwich ($4.75, or $6.25 with fries). Their batter recipe produces a fluffy, crispy fried oyster that floats into the mouth (I tried to get their recipe, but they just smiled at me). I have friends who prefer their oysters “nuked” (microwaved), a style I’m not accustomed to; nuked oysters taste a little mealy to me. But I crave their oysters raw and just-shucked ($6.50 a dozen), especially wolfed down Southern-style on saltine crackers so that each bite contrasts the flaky crispness of a cracker and the plump, cold flesh of an oyster.

The Shell also serves grouper, which dipped in their super-secret fry-batter comes out moist and flavorful, its steam rising out of its delicate crispy battered surface, as well as shrimp, scallops, crab claws, and on occasion, crab cakes. (Sorry, I’m a crab snob: only Dungeness for this gal.) I’ve had the shrimp steamed in garlic butter, which was decent enough, and the shrimp is delicious fried — but honestly, I go there for the oysters.

If you’re new to town or just visiting, all of our local fish is wonderful, but I have eaten oysters in a dozen states and several countries, and I can attest we have some of the finest oysters in the world — sweet and crisp, with a mellow flavor note — courtesy of the perfect mix of fresh and salt water that forms our beloved (and beleaguered) Apalachicola Bay.

With one exception, side dishes at the Shell are not memorable. The fries are serviceable. The coleslaw is crunchy and without too much mayonnaise, but lacks spark (I suppose, having said that, it’s contradictory to point out that the portions are very small.) The cheese grits are forgettable. I don’t know why I keep ordering the hush puppies — they’re always cold and soggy with oil — though here’s my theory for why they’re bad: the cooking oil is kept at just the right temperature for frying fish, which is lower than what’s optimum for frying spoonfuls of cornbread.

But the onion rings — $3.25 for a basket large enough to share with several people — are numinous: crisp, light, melting, almost greaseless. The onions have just a tiny bit of snap, yet are slightly softened and sweetened by their brief time in the fryer. These onion rings are so good, I could be buried with a basket of them in my arms.

Because I’m a little shy in restaurants, I’ve never sat at the Shell’s counter and dined on oysters the way some do, eating them off a tray as fast as the shuckers can shuck them. Not only does that look fun, but it gets around my one concern about the Shell: many meals are served on disposable polystyrene dishes, accompanied by plastic packets of cutlery and napkins. If I had one wish for the Shell, it would be that it reduce the semi-permanent waste it is contributing to our landfill. We don’t need Spode china and linen napkins; trays and lined baskets would work for most meals (and in fact some dishes already use baskets and liners). The Shell is very green already, simply by virtue of serving local fish, and this would take its environmentalism to another level.

Beverages are simple — tea, soda, coffee, and bottled water — but you may BYOB, which for some means Bring Your Own Budweiser and for others means bringing a nice bottle of wine. That’s part of the charm of the Shell: this is a local joint in the best sense of the word, a place where you can rub shoulders with legislators, state wonks, professors, students, folks from local businesses, moms, dads, and their kids, and average Janes like me, all joined together in our common enjoyment of local fish, prepared well and served with real heart. In Tallahassee, where a new chain restaurant pops up every week, serving food trucked in from who-knows-where, we’re lucky to have institutions such as the Shell, and it’s up to us to make sure they survive.

The Shell is cash-only. They accept take-out phone orders and also sell shucked oysters from the pint all the way up to full bags (about 18 dozen oysters). I recently bought a pint to make chowder ($12.00), and the oysters were impeccable (see recipe below). Catering is available.

The Shell Oyster Bar, 114 East Oakland Ave (between Munroe and Adams), 850-224-9919
Monday through Thursday 11-6, Friday 11-7, Saturday 11-6 (closed Sunday)

Type of establishment: down-home oyster bar
Signature dish: raw oysters
Noise level: variable
Dress: just wear something
Cost: $
Notes: cash only; BYOB
Chance I’d eat here again: 100%

Deep Winter Oyster Chowder

Sometimes I like a thin, uncomplicated chowder: not much more than good rich milk and barely-heated oysters. Other times I want something more involved and rib-sticking. Living near the Gulf, the trick is to never outshine the star of the show: the oyster. We’re also lucky to have local dairies and farms. If I worked on it, the wine and the pepper would be the only imports.

3 slices bacon (Niman Ranch is good)
1 tablespoon flour
2 cups chopped leeks, white and pale green part only
1 white or baking potato, approximately 10 ounces
1 8 ounce bottle clam juice, or substitute water
1 to 2 tablespoons chopped fresh thyme (substitute a pinch dry thyme if necessary)
1 pint half-and-half, ½ cup set aside (I like Gustafson’s, available at many local markets)
½ cup good dry white wine, such as a sauvignon blanc or pinot grigio
1 pint Shell Oyster Bar oysters, with oyster liquor
Salt and pepper

Dice the bacon and render in a large saucepan while you peel the potato and chop it into ¼” dice. (You can leave a little peel on.)When the bacon has browned, scoop it out and reserve.

Sautee the chopped leeks in the bacon fat until wilted, 3 to 5 minutes. Stir in the flour and cook for half a minute, then slowly stir in the clam juice and one and a half cups of the half-and-half. Add the diced potato and the thyme.

If no one is looking, take a long drink of the oyster liquor — it’s delicious. Otherwise, pour all of the oyster liquor into the chowder and then stir in the wine.

Simmer the chowder for about ten minutes, or until the potatoes are tender. Stir now and then so the chowder doesn’t burn and so the surface doesn’t develop a skin. If the chowder gets too thick, add a little half and half and water. Stir in the oysters and cook three minutes more, until the oysters have heated through. While the oysters are heating, taste the broth and add salt if necessary.

Grind a little black pepper in the chowder right before or right after serving. Serve in wide bowls with crusty bread, and some hot sauce on the side for those who enjoy a splash of it in their chowder.

Makes two very hearty main-dish portions. (Leave out the potato, and you have four good first-course servings, or with a side or two, a nice lunch for four.)

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