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'Homicide' at Island View Inn,
no suspects By Jackie Nickel It wasn't a real murder but drew almost as much attention last week as the TV series Homicide filmed an episode at Island View Inn on Barrison Point, with additional scenes shot at Rocky Point Park and a house on Holly Neck Road. The Barry Levinson series has been renewed for the fall season and the local segment will be aired the first part of October. While much filming for the series has been done in Fells Point and other in-town locations, this segment revolves around a female detective played by Melissa Leo who, while visiting her family on Tilghman's Island, becomes involved in a homicide case which occurs in her hometown. Taking the entire cast and crew to Tilghman's would have been cost prohibitive, according to Location Manager Debbie Donaldson, so she and her assistant Kathy Ash began checking out closer waterfront locales, including Back River Neck. At the end of Barrison Point they discovered the rustic Island View Inn, with its down-home atmosphere, "eclectic" decor (including an extensive hat collection hanging from the rafters among white twinkle lights), pool table, and well-worn bar. Access to a large waterfront parcel adjacent to the bar was an additional selling point. The bar and waterfront have been owned by the Laing family for many years with Fran working the kitchen while sons Bruce and Tom tend bar. Once the location manager decided that Island View was the perfect stand-in for Tilghman's Island, Bruce became the go-between with the television production company in scheduling a week of actual filming. The company arrived about two weeks ago to begin setting up, bringing numerous trucks, trailers, a food tent and props. Once actual filming began, silence became the rule, both indoors and out. The Director gave orders including several reshoots of a single scene. Outside, crew leaders monitored the taping on a small screen shielded by a hood and umbrellas. Inside, the studio lights made the bar unbearably hot but even worse, the action is supposedly taking place in the fall of the year so the actors were required to wear coats and jackets. During "nighttime" scenes, black plastic was taped to all the windows, making it even hotter inside, as this writer can attest. Last Thursday I was invited to sit at a table in the background during the taping of a bar-fight scene. Since I was wearing a dark-colored dress, appropriate for fall, I was allowed to stay, while a reporter from Tilghman's Island who was wearing a summery white tank top was asked to leave during filming of the scene. Bruce stood in the background during some shots. Whether either of us will be visible on screen is doubtful - but we'll be watching, that's for sure! Outside shots were taped later that evening near the waterfront where a crab feast, complete with four bushels of crabs, was set up as part of the storyline. In that scene, Bruce's house was used as the backdrop and the production company had a bright pink and blue neon sign made especially for the scene mounted on the roof. The Laings were allowed to keep the sign and soon will have it placed inside the bar (outside might be a temptation to vandals, says Bruce). Other scenes for the episode were filmed at a farmhouse-style home on Holly Neck Road, which featured mostly indoor shots, and at Rocky Point Park where a shanty-town set was erected near the pier area. Many work boats captained by local skippers gathered offshore as well as skipjack that was brought in from the Inner Harbor to serve as background. Back at Island View, while the cameras were elsewhere, Bruce served customers and kept sightseers informed until the crew returned. "It was a carnival atmosphere all week," says the laid-back barkeeper. By Saturday night, things were back to normal at the "The View", as it's called by regulars. The pool table was moved back to its old position and the barside tables were back in place. A few folks were enjoying the crabcake special, others were circulating between the shuffleboard and pool table. A lively political debate drowned out the corner TV and Bruce was back behind the bar. "It was fun, but I'm glad it's over," smiles the owner whose business will soon gain national exposure. Only problem is, a lot of Homicide fans are apt to look for Island View Inn on Tilghman's Island.
Excerpt from the Article “Crab Pots of Summer” in the magazine “Edible Chesapeake” Issue 2, Summer 2005 By John Shields, Chef and Author of “Chesapeake Bay Cooking” … Recently, to get more background on what constitutes the perfect crab soup, I made a pilgrimage to one of my favorite crab soup destinations, the Island View Waterfront Café just off Back River Neck Road in Middle River. The café sits on the banks of Brown’s Cove, an idyllic spot that transports one back to a time before urban sprawl and development impacted the shorelines of the Bay. The matriarch of the family-run business, Fran Laing, knows her Maryland Crab soup. She’s been at the helm of her crab-soup pot for 35 years. Fran’s philosophy for the mouth-watering soup she creates is simple. “I cook the way I cook for my family – never cooked any different.” Miss Fran first started making crab soup using leftover crabs from crab feasts. Her technique is to get all the fat from inside the tips of the top shell of the crab. She says it adds lots of rich, crabby flavor to the soup. Originally in her early batches, Fran would also break the bodies of the steamed crabs in half, leave them in the soup as it cooked, then serve each bowl with halves of crab. Later she found her patrons preferred just crabmeat, as the bodies were “too messy to eat in the soup.” Miss Fran’s recipe is a classic Baltimore-style vegetable crab soup. It is nor prepared with a fish or crab stock, but rather a beef stock using beef bones “with some meat still on the bone.” Fran feels the bones and ensuring suet “really give it the taste.” She seasons her soup with Old Bay, not only because it tastes good, but also because it reminds her of all the wonderful aromas in the Inner Harbor that came from the old McCormick spice company when it was situated on the Patapsco River. Her soup is chock-full of lump crabmeat and vegetables bathed in her homemade broth.
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