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Freemans: Takeout Dishes That Complete the Feast By Anne Semmes New York Times December 17, 1994 With Christmas a week away, hosts caught in the holiday rush may not be up to cooking the complete feast. Help is at hand in takeout shops that can provide hers d'oeuvres, desserts and the other labor-intensive dishes to fill in an gaps in the menu. So, for those with no time to spare, here are some suggestions from a sampling of catering shops around the state and a tiny but well-stocked fish market. Most stores have a cut-off date for placing holiday orders. Also, when picking up the food on Christmas Eve, shoppers should get instructions for storing and reheating the dishes. Because the Italian custom is to feast on seafood on Christmas Eve, fish markets_like Freeman's in Maplewood provide many ethnic specialties at this time of year. Edward Freeman, a former broker turned fishmonger, says his trim, upscale shop offers everything from bacalao, the dried salt cod, to live eels ($9.99 a pound), to spearing, a tiny smelt-like fish. The spearing, he said, popular with the older generation of Italians, who fry it whole.' The bacalao comes dried, soaked in water or in salad with black olives and hot peppers (all three are $9.99 a pound). The shop also prepares Italian-style seafood salads and zuppa di pesce. For Christmas dinner, Freeman's also has sweet Nantucket and Peconic Bay scallops (both $12.99 a pound). Shrimp platters serving 8 to 12 are $49.99. "At Christmastime," Mr. Freeman said, "we park two trailer trucks outside the store -- one to hold orders, the other to hold excess product that we can't hold in the store."