Ingredients I'd love to try

So, I'm feeling in a bit of a cooking rut. I've been making the same things over and over again, buying the same ingredients, and occasionally branching out into a new use of them.

Last year was a pretty good year for me, in terms of learning how to cook new things, and I'm hoping to push the envelope on that again this year.

Here's a short list of ingredients I'd like to learn how to use this year:
* fennel (confession: I don't actually know what this looks like, what it tastes like or if I will like it... But it appears in a number of interesting recipes I've seen lately!)
* greens that aren't spinach or arugula, ie: swiss chard and kale (same confession as the fennel)
* lemongrass -- used in Thai and Indian cooking, mostly, from what I can tell
* fish (OK, I *do* know how to cook fish... I just rarely do it, and even more rarely do anything interesting)

Any ideas or tips for these ingredients?  Would love to hear!

dreaming? of all the new things I might cook this year