New menu at Petaluma's Drawing Board

Although I haven’t seen it yet, Rosie Wiggins of The Drawing Board informs me that the restaurant will launch a reworked menu in early January, thanks in part to a new chef she has brought on board. I don’t expect huge changes in style or ingredients, because of Rosie’s desire to offer healthy, international, paleo-centric (i.e. not processed), locally-sourced food items.

She is also going back to her original idea of offering a collaborative community-driven space dedicated to promoting wellness, which leads me to the upcoming classes offered at The Drawing Board.

The next two offerings in the restaurant’s “Folk Medicine” series of classes are Jan. 15 with a “Kimchi Making” class, followed by “Immune Tonics” the following Monday. Classes include a shared meal, complimentary wine, and of course, something to take home, which in this case will include either your personally created Kimchi or hand-crafted tonic.

Most importantly, guests will learn more about how what we put into our body actually effects our body. More information at www.tdbpetaluma.com.

SlamBurger

SlamBurger received a nice mention in BiteClub’s year-end Sonoma County food wrap-up for their Kale Salad. Admittedly, kale is one of my least favorite veggies, but SlamBurger’s lacks the normal bitterness that I object to.

SlamBurger has also recently added a few new items to their menu, to supplement our favorites, which include the Lamb Slam, Swiss Miss, and Shrooma-Luma. New to the menu are the Far East burger, created with organic grass-fed beef, coleslaw, white cheddar, bacon, sriracha mayo, tomato, red onion and house pickles, and the Slam Taco, which is organic grass-fed beef, chopped lettuce, tomato, house chimichurri and lime.

SlamBurger was developed because the owner wanted to offer Sonoma County affordable burgers from local, sustainable sources. No hormones, no GMO’s, and pickles, sauces and dressing are made in-house. Additionally, they used 100 percent compostable packaging produced by local vendors.

New local vodka

While vacationing over the holidays in Dillon Beach, we finally had a chance to try Sonoma Coast Spirits new line of vodkas. If truth be told, I am not much of a hard alcohol fan, but that seems to be changing with all the great local offerings. I always assumed it was the 30-second downing of a fifth of Jack Daniels at a party during my senior year of high school that turned me off of the hard stuff, however, in recent years, as I have tasted higher quality spirits, I’m starting to rethink that idea.

Last holiday season, I tried the very limited release Barber Cellars Rye Whiskey and was again pleasantly surprised that I liked it. Mike and Lorraine tell me they are working on the next batch, but aged spirits take time, so we won’t see this one again in the near future.

Then I had a few custom cocktails at the Drawing Board, where their “well” alcohol is the “top shelf” stuff you’d find in any other bar, with most of it being local. Certainly the rest of the all-natural botanical ingredients in their cocktails help, but the quality spirits always seem to compliment the drinks and I’ve never found any of them objectionable. Quite on the contrary, I have never had one of their cocktails that I wouldn’t have again.

Back to Sonoma Coast Spirits. While visiting Charley’s Wine Country Deli on the Boulevard, we saw a woman picking up two of Sonoma Coast’s special holiday baskets. She knew the owner of Monarch Bitters, which is part of the gift basket, and was thrilled to learn that the included vodka was also locally produced.

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