"I love their smells. They make me happy," says Torrey, owner of Garden Gate in the Pompano, Fla., Citi Centre.

Herbs also appeal to her practical side. "I can't cook without them because food without herbs is boring."

Torrey comes by her cooking skills rightly. "My fondest memories are waking up on Saturday morning to my mother frying onions to use in her sauce," she says. "That was the beginning of my love of cooking."

Her Italian mother grew her own basil to use in that sauce, and Torrey still makes Mimi's Secret Tomato Sauce with home-grown herbs. "This is the best sauce ever," she says. The secret is combining fresh basil, onions and anchovies in a food processor with wine and then stirring that mixture into simmering tomatoes.

When Torrey's plants are producing a lot of basil, she preserves it in oil. She picks the leaves and then washes and dries them carefully. (Moisture can turn oil rancid, she says.) She packs the fresh basil into a clean, dry glass jar and covers the leaves with good quality olive oil leaving a small amount of head room in the jar. She caps it and refrigerates the oil to be used in sauces, dressings, pesto, bean dishes, soups and sautes for "amazing fresh flavor."

"I use the flavored oil in just about every darn thing I make," Torrey says. You can also flavor oil with parsley, sage and cilantro.

Another trick is to make herbal vinegars. She packs the herbs in a jar that she fills with apple cider vinegar and lets the mixture steep at room temperature for a couple of weeks. Then she drains the vinegar, packs it in decorative jars (empty wine bottles work well) and adds a sprig of the herb before corking or sealing. If you use purple basil to make the vinegar, it turns a pretty pink, she says.

The herb vinegar makes great gifts, she says.

It seems no matter what she cooks, Torrey adds a bit of fresh herbs. "Whenever I want a little snap I pick a little fresh and throw it in the pan."

She wouldn't think of cooking a chicken without flavoring it with thyme and rosemary as she does in her recipe for Roast Whole Chicken with Potatoes, Onions and Fresh Herbs.

Better yet, she plucks a few sprigs of delicate citrusy lemon thyme off a plant in her back yard to use in this recipe. "My whole yard is a garden, there's no grass," she says.

Even winter vegetables such as calabaza, pumpkin or butternut squash get great flavor when sauteed with a little honey and some rosemary, sage or parsley. Torrey serves Herbed Winter Squash as a side dish but suggests adding turkey sausage or chicken to make it a meal in a pan or serve it over pasta for a tasty vegetarian entree.

She also adds rosemary to roasted vegetables that she coats with oil and cooks at 375 degrees until tender and nicely browned on the outside. "You don't want to use too much rosemary because you can definitely overdo it. It has a strong flavor," she says.

Another favorite recipe of Torrey's is Beet Salad With Dill. This easy jewel-toned salad has wonderful fresh flavors and is loaded with vitamins. "I'm just starting to get to know this herb," she says as she experiments with it in her cooking.

Although supermarkets now carry a wide array of fresh herbs, there's no excuse for not growing your own. Especially in South Florida, Torrey says.

Herbs look decorative whether planted in the yard between other plants or placed in pots. Torrey prefers pots because she doesn't want her dogs_Big Al, a white German Shepherd; Herbie, a border collie mix named for the aromatic plants in her garden; and Katie, a black cocker spaniel_to trample them.

October through June are the best months for growing herbs outdoors or in pots in your garden or on a balcony. You can grow them through the summer, but you have to be sure the plants don't get too much sun and don't dry out, Torrey says.

When choosing plants for year round growing, avoid dill, cilantro and thyme, which do particularly poorly in summer.

To grow your own herbs, pick a spot that gets 4 to 8 hours of direct sun. Select deep pots that are 8 to 10 inches in diameter. Clay pots may look more decorative but they are porous and dry out faster than plastic ones. Fill the pots with good quality potting soil because herbs need to have good drainage.

"The main thing with herbs is you can't let them dry out," Torrey says. That means putting them near a sprinkler head or watering them regularly by hand to keep them evenly moist.

Torrey recommends placing the pots as near your door as possible so that when you are cooking it's easy to step outside and snip some.