I wrote a C# implementation of the freedesktop.org Recent Files spec today that seems to work ok with existing gnome programs. It is not very well tested, so be careful. For those interested it is here, http://bugzilla.ximian.com/show_bug.cgi?id=54880 even though it is not MonoDevelop specific. You want just the RecentFiles.cs file if you want to try it, please dont add comments to the bug unless it is about MonoDevelop. Specific things about RecentFiles.cs can come straight to me, including where it should eventually live if people find it useful.
My TV broke, but luckily things like tvtime and mythtv exist.