Saving the neighbor's basil

Guest column from my good friend Gayle:

Yesterday my friend and neighbor Bob called. I'm cleaning out the garden, would you like Basil? My mama taught me never to turn down free food, so of course I said yes. He brought up an enormous tree of basil. I was up to my eyeballs with work, so I set my sister to cleaning it.

The phone rings again. Hi, me again. How about some Tarragon? Sure. He bring this huge tangled ball of tarragon. I then put both my sisters to work.

Now I was faced with 2 large colanders of tarragon, and a giant bowl of basil. Not to mention the dishpan full of "waste" for the compost bin. How the heck do I was and dry ll this. Time was ticking on the basil. It turns black in a New York minute. Cold stops the blackening, so I knew it had to go in the fridge dirty until I decided.

Normally when I was herbs I just dry them between cotton towels. I am too cheap to use paper towels, and I'm not gadget oriented so I never bought a salad spinner. Heck, I never even used one until my fund raiser last June. It was cool.

A salad spinner would be perfect for the job. I knew my neice has one and we were going to see "Julia and Julie" (at the Boyd. Old, lots of character, and only $6!) maybe she could come early and we could take the herbs for a ride in her spinner. She did. We did.

The entire process, with two working took five, maybe six minutes. My way would have taken at east an hour, if not more. It turns out that a salad spinner is not a gadget. It is a great thing. The herbs were drier than I could ever get them with towels, in seconds.

Now I didn't want to just throw them in a bag into the freezer. They still would have been a lump in December when I needed them. I needed something closer to individual. So I pulled out my cookie sheets, covered them with wax paper, and spread the tarragon out on two, and then the basil on two more. I stuck them in the deep freeze and went to the movies.

This morning I had to decide on packaging. I usually chose "tupperware". It stacks, it's easy to label and keeps my freezer organized. But for herbs I found zipper bags work best.

Herbs go from frozen to thawed in a very few minutes. Make sure your hands are clean, and the bags are open, labeled and ready to go before you start. Pull out one tray at a time and fill the bags, close them and put them right back in the freezer.

Then this winter, when you need fresh basil and they are charging $3.99 for two sprigs in the store. You've got "fresh" in the freezer. It can't be used for a garnish, but really, is garnish worth $3.99?