TIGHT LINES
WATER, WATER EVERYWHERE
with Andrew Spencer
So Thanksgiving is once again upon us. In other words, a lot of us get to go through the horrific stress of traveling to and from this glorious little island, being herded through airports like so many cattle, all so we can spend time with people we moved out to Nantucket specifically to get away from in the first place. As a consolation prize, we get to eat ourselves sick and then sit around and watch football games.

Every family out there has its own Thanksgiving traditions. For example, in the Spencer household, it's not officially Thanksgiving until there's a full-fledged battle royale going on, complete with screaming, yelling and crying. In fact, my mother is locally famous for one of her own Thanksgiving declarations: "Gentlemen! Dinner is not a contact sport!" Such is life when you're the only girl in a house with five guys, no?

But despite the unique traditions we all cherish, most years it seems that everyone I talk to mentions a similar theme: leftovers. No matter who you talk to or where you go, the word "leftovers" almost always comes up in conversations about post-Thanksgiving plans. Leftovers are not a bad thing; they're quite the contrary, in fact. I'm a huge fan of leftovers - it's kind of a holdover from my days in graduate school when a six-dollar casserole had to last me for a week - but I'm an especially big fan of Thanksgiving leftovers. I can't say why, it's just one of those things that always has been and always will be true.

The nice thing about Thanksgiving leftovers is that they don't stick around that long, which means that there's not that much special preparation you need to go through to store them. You wrap some foil over the turkey, maybe throw the other stuff in some Tupperware, you're done. It's gone in three days, and then you start thinking about how to lose the extra ten pounds you put on before Christmas. There is a whole other world of leftovers, though, a world that involves things not related to the Thanksgiving holidays. Case in point, there's always that pesky issue of how to store all those goodies you bring home during the fall on Nantucket. I mean, does anybody know a good way to store all those bass fillets and shucked bay scallops in the freezer?

I'm thankful this year for all the segues that have appeared in this column. Just like that one.

Friends and neighbors, it's important to realize that we're not talking about storing cooked leftovers here. This is a technique you can use yearround to store fish, scallops, venison, whatever. Just follow the instructions as they're outlined here, and you can't miss.

You're going to need some materials for this. First of all, plastic freezer bags. I like gallon-sized ones, but you can use whatever size fits your need. You're also going to need a permanent marker, something worth freezing (i.e. a bushel of bay scallops) and the key ingredient in all of this: water.

Now, a little food-related chemistry lesson here. The enemy of all things frozen is trapped air. Air trapped inside a sealed baggie - no matter how little - contains oxygen, which basically allows the food inside to rust, just like iron. You can think of freezer-burned food as rusty food. And to prevent freezer burn, you've got to make sure the air doesn't get in there. Does this sound like a latenight infomercial yet?

So here we go. First things first, label your baggie with whatever it is you're going to put inside. Don't get fooled into thinking that you're going to remember in six months what it was. Just label it with your marker and make your life easier. Step two, put whatever it is you're freezing inside the baggie. And yes, it's a good idea to make sure that the items you put in the bag correspond to what you wrote on the outside. There's nothing better at killing the mood than to unfreeze those Nantucket bay scallops, only to find that you froze a couple pairs of socks instead.

Now comes the important part. Fill the remainder of the food-containing baggie with cold water. Leave about an inch of room at the top to allow for expansion - water expands when it freezes, remember. Now zip the baggie shut until there's just a wee-little bit left open on the end. Squeeze the remaining air out of the baggie - you'll see water squirting out the opening when the air is gone - and then finish sealing the baggie. Place the baggie in the freezer and you're done. The water has replaced the air, preventing freezer burn. When you want to thaw it out, just put the whole baggie in the sink and let it sit there. You'll find that whatever was inside is just like the day you froze it. Bon appetit.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a turkey terrific sandwich to make.

Tight lines.

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