I've never had fresh herbs. If I needed some parsley or something like that for a recipe, I'd use the bottle of dried parsley that came with the spice rack that my mom got when she first came to America twenty plus years ago. It tasted like shaved cardboard, and apparently, you can't do that. Dried herbs should be used within 6 months, and they should look perky and eager to be used. Dried parsley should still be green, and cayenne pepper should be fiery red. As I've started to cook more and more, I've slowly raised my standards on spices. Though dried spices are better for certain kinds of recipes (i.e. ones that require long cooking times), I got sick of spatting jealously at recipes that called for fresh sprigs of this and that.
