Jobs to do in the new year: refill and alphabetize spice bottles; consolidate contents of jars with an inch or so of jam left in the bottom; go through back issues of Gourmet and clip recipes. Oh, the hell with it. Let’s just have some fun, beginning on-line.

Western society is food-obsessed these days. How else to explain Ratatouille, an animated Disney flick opening next summer that recounts the adventures of a wannabe restaurateur rat in Paris. Google it and watch the trailer. The Net is also a-wallow in local food sites long on restaurant openings, chefs moving hither and yon, and diners’ personal opinions. By far the most engaging is one I’ve been lurking on for the past year. I’m not alone. People in 127 other countries have logged on to www.chowtimes.com/ to see what this Richmond family has been cooking and eating. New Canadians from Southeast Asia, they’re a cool antidote to Vancouver’s feverish mainstream-restaurant scene. Read the archives and you’ll learn the location of Vietnamese subs close to the airport, share trips to Singapore and Malaysia, find out about secret blackberry patches, collect recipes galore (clear instructions and terrific step-by-step photography), and “eat” at scads of small, mostly Asian places that you might otherwise never have known about. There’s a big world of on-line dining out there, so in ’07, resolve to broaden yours beyond Kits and the Drive.

As an expat Brit, I’m quids in by perusing the Observer’s monthly food and wine magazine , at observer.guardian.co.uk/foodmonthly/ (with five years archived if you want to hole up for a day and emerge, bleeding-eyed). Another good read is the Times food section at www.timesonline.co.uk/foodanddrink/. Of its three restaurant critics, I’m off A.A. Gill at the moment and on Giles Coren. See his story on Acorn House, which he calls “the most important restaurant to open in London in the past 200 years”. Coren represents the new generation of food writers—worlds apart from the unutterably smug Michael Winner, who flaunts his well-fed face in every column. You build relationships with these people.

Also a Sunday Times regular, chef Gordon Ramsay comes across far more mild-mannered in print than he does on TV. Sample from the Times: “I always remember my mum coming back from the shops weighed down with dried fruit and nuts.” On TV: You wonder why his mum doesn’t wash his mouth out with soap. Food Network Canada sent me a screener of the first three episodes of the second season of Hell’s Kitchen. It’s aired previously on other networks but definitely not this uncensored version, which has Ramsay’s abrasive TV persona in full throttle as he pits (or rather pit bulls) men against women in the kitchen. But I have to admit it’s addictive. Catch the second show this Tuesday (January 9) at 10 p.m.

Enough screens. Let’s get out into the daylight. What’s huge and Italian? Not Pavarotti, duh, but the new castello-like A. Bosa&Co (1465 Kootenay Street). Reasons I love this store: enough olive oil to float the Queen Mary, whole hams, a butcher’s counter with intelligent staff (“We’re out of chicken thighs. How about I cut these chicken legs in half?”), a magnificent deli with a window revealing slowly aging wheels of Parmigiano like great amber beads. Invest in a big wedge because, at $18.95 a kilo, you won’t find it cheaper anywhere else. Note that payment is cash or debit only, and hours are 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday to Saturday (till 7 p.m. on Friday).

If this weekend or any time this year to come you’re responsible for safe rides home, don’t call yourself a Designated Driver, an irritatingly lumpen name surely dreamed up by a committee. Instead, follow the French example and dub yourself dashingly, le capitaine du soir. Now doesn’t that have more of a thigh-slapping, Jack Sparrow ring to it?

Finally, a little spot to earmark if you like Mexican food. Tucked away in medical-test country, Cilantro & Jalapeno boasts a grocery selection that does away with the need to trek to Richmond for Que Pasa’s authentic ingredients. They sell it all here: panela, Mexican and Spanish chorizo, achiote paste, seven varieties of dried peppers, plus dried ground pasilla and guajillo, epazote, corn husks, fresh tomatillos, and homemade salsa by the half-cup or litre. There’s a far-ranging menu to eat in or take out (I recommend the vegetarian burritos), and lesser-seen dishes like warming pozole soup and sincronizada sandwiches. Average plate price: six bucks. Happy 2007.