A foodie's new year's resolutions list

Towards the end of the year, almost everybody compiles a list of new year's resolutions, things that for the most part will be abandoned and shamefully forgotten within three to four weeks, when our behavior naturally and mercilessly goes back to the old self. Things like losing weight, stop smoking, exercising more, being nicer to coworkers, stop fantasizing about the 22 year old neighbor wearing leopard miniskirt. We all have tried, and we all have failed.

So, for this year, I have compiled a five point new year's resolution list with achievable targets that should make the life of a foodie much better:

1. Try at least one entirely new food per month: we all have our favorite recipe, our favorite meal, our favorite restaurant. The one we resort way too often. And there is nothing wrong with that (for me it would probably be pasta e fagioli, a soup with brown beans and short pasta). But my resolution for this year is to try at least one new food every month. When I say new food I mean something that I have never tried and that I would normally overlook and never order in a restaurant. I have had my share of funky food (alligator, crocodile, snake, horse, dog), but there are a lot of "regular" things that I haven't tried yet, including Chicago's Italian beef. I think this exercise can help broaden my food horizons (although I guess I will never like tapioca...)
2. Go to at least a new restaurant per month. This is related to the first point. When we moved to Chicago, my wife and tried a lot of new restaurants, but over the past few months we have been sticking to the same ones. We need to go back to exploring...
3. Entertain more and cook more for others at home. We cook a lot at home. But we rarely have people for dinner at our place (maybe once every two months). I don't know how this happened: in Brussels, we used to have people for dinner almost once a week. Yes, our apartment was way bigger, and yes, there are a lot more things to do here in Chicago then in Brussels. But still: we could do better in the entertaining area, and I intend to do better. There is another advantage associated to this: getting people's opinion on my food...
4. Bake more. I had already alluded to the fact that I am not a baker nor a dessert cook. I have started to experiment with baking in the last quarter of 2010, and although I will never be as good as my wife - or as Nasim, a New Zeland friend about to open a bakery in Chicago (you can check her blog here) - I intend to get better. 
5. Visit foodies American meccas. Chicago is a great food city, but I don't think a real foodie can miss cities such as New Orleans or Las Vegas. And I don't intend to miss them either..

PS: my wife suggested I add eat more vegetables to the list. But I said I wanted the list to be realistic...
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