Category: Featured

When it comes to fighting Alzheimer’s Disease It’s All About Needing More Benjamins

The Benjamins
The Benjamins

If you missed this year’s Petaluma Walk to End Alzheimer’s at #Petaluma’s Shollenberger Park after watching this video you may decide you want to be a part of next years event. We ran across this video produced and posted by Christine Drew Benjamin (Music by Ingrid Michaelson) covering this event and we are very impressed by it. The YouTube video below is called “It’s All About the Benjamin’s – THANK YOU!” and does a wonderful job of capturing the spirit of the event and sense of community coming together to help fight such a debilitating disease. Her father who was diagnosed with the disease in 2012 is also on the video as he does a short speech. Notable is the amount of money she helped sponsor for this event with thank you’s to all her donors are provided as credits at the end.

Two #Petaluma Candy Bars Featured In 7×7 for Halloween

A 7×7 article by Alissa Merksamer 6 Local Candy Bars for Halloween featured two Petaluma companies that make candy bars to help sweeten eager trick-or-treaters.
000388Did you know that Amy’s Kitchen made candy? According to their website, Amy’s father Andy loves candy. As the son of a candy maker, he spent his childhood sampling chocolate morsels and chewy caramel from his father’s candy kitchen.  The 7×7 article indicates they launched this past summer adding four candy bars to the Amy’s line of organic, vegetarian prepared foods.
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The other Petaluma company is Sjaak’s Organic Chocolate who are known for their organic chocolates. Owner Jacques Holten trained in confectionery in his native Holland before marrying his Northern California-reared wife Pam. Their small company in Petaluma emphasizes social responsibility, and they craft a variety of vegan chocolates made with non-bone char sugar, meaning sugar that hasn’t been bleached by ground cow bones. They too have bite-size treats appropriate for Halloween.
Click on these links to purchase click on the candy photos below.


 

KQED Bay Area Bites Announces Pop-Up Octoberfest at #Petaluma’s Thistle Meats

Chef Mark Malicki. Photo: Brian Howlett
Chef Mark Malicki Photo: Brian Howlett

KQED’s Bay Area Bites Pop-Up Octoberfest at Petaluma’s Thistle Meats by Stephanie Rosenbaum Klassen suggests “Why not have a meat-heavy festival like Octoberfest at a butcher shop?” This will be Thistle Meats 3rd pop-up dinner featuring the same chef Mark Malicki who has built up a following. So what’s different about this one? What’s unique about this one is you usually don’t hear about it until it’s over and you hear people on the streets saying “Hey I wonder what’s going on at Thistle tonite” or “Oh yeah, I saw a bunch of people at Thistle last night – what was going on?”

Previous reports on the first two pop-ups were excellent. Click here for a review on Chowhound posted by tom246.

Here is the information:
Octoberfest Pop-Up, October 27, 6-9:30pm
Thistle Meats
Address: Map
160 Petaluma Blvd North
Petaluma, CA 94952
(707) 772-5442
Facebook: Thistle Meats

Second Look Sunday: A Positively Petaluma Weeks In Review

There are lots of great things going on in #Petaluma, you just have to dig for them.  We search for and collects the positive information about our great city in one place: The Petaluma Magazine.  The Second Look will be a reflection of some of the posts from the previous weeks.

1000’s are enjoying their free subscription with thousands of positive articles including these most recent posts from previous weeks:

Petaluma Celebrates the Centennial of the Northwestern Pacific Railroad

Petaluma’s Alex Tanalski California State Chili Champ

Barich works her way up the cross country ranks

Record-breaking season for the Case Grande HS X-country team

$6 million makeover for Petaluma school

POPULAR: Positively Petaluma Interview with Actor Adrian Grenier

Petaluma’s First Firefighter James Mott Not Forgotten

Petaluma Coastguardsman Honored for Bravery

A motorcycle crew with a heart of gold

“Save Lives Sonoma” helps 13-year Old Lewis Save The Life Of His Father with CPR

Award-Winning Pacific Empire Chorus Celebrates 50th Anniversary

Fleet week with the crew of the Sea Scout Ship Compass Rose

Trojans bounce back for happy homecoming

Rich history of river celebrated in Petaluma

Petaluma Racer not yet out of gas

Petaluma’s Labcon bringing new energy to North Bay

Video Petaluma Casa Grande Matt Abramo: A Bright Light In A Dark Room

From Marketing Executive to Petaluma Farmer: Deborah Walton created Canvas Ranch

Dead Pirates Roberts Day with Actor Cary Elwes

Other posts can be found on in our archives.  Thanks also for “Like”ing us on Facebook and following us on Twitter.

#Petaluma Celebrates the Centennial of Northwestern Pacific Railroad

Trains were a big factor in our local economy and industry.  The fact that we have a Northwestern Pacific Railroad Museum and Historical Society is because Petaluma would not be the town that it is today without the rail system.  Positively Petaluma did a little digging into the history and wanted to show you some vintage photos of the train history in Petaluma.

Here are some photographs we found in the Sonoma County Historical Archives.

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Our historical Petaluma Visitor Center and art center is the original train depot and in the past has served as the center of our city’s transportation since 1914.  In 1991 it was featured in a made for TV Hitchcock thriller in 1991.  Today it will become a depot for the new Sonoma Marin Rail Transit Commission (SMART) train system.

Here are historical photos of our Petaluma Depot.

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#Petaluma’s First Firefighter James Mott Not Forgotten

You may have seen some of the posts on James Mott and his memorial on October 23.  This led me to do a little more research on him.downloadThe first firefighter in Petaluma was 1873 but at that time there were no city employees and only volunteers.  James Mott was the first paid Petaluma firefighter for our city starting 1807 and became a part of the YOUNG AMERICA ENGINE COMPANY NO. 3, PETALUMA FIRE DEPARTMENT. He was also the city jailer and ambulance driver well-known for his special bond with his horse Black Bart. He is also the first Petaluma firefighter making the ultimate sacrifice while fighting a fire in the downtown who lost his life in the line of duty in a vehicle explosion on October 20,1912.   His life would end a few days later at the age of 57.

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You can click on the photo of the newspaper to read the article of the story in the San Francisco Call.  I had not seen it mentioned anywhere else, but the Mayor of Petaluma, William H. Zartman, at that time also served as a volunteer firefighter and he was badly burned in this fire.  Additionally a former Petaluma Fire Chief Henry J. Myers working as a volunteer had both ears burned off. The article indicates Mott inhaled flames from the fire.  The force of the blast was taken directly by James Mott burning him severely. Despite being burned firefighter Mott assisted the injured bystanders to safety and helped extinguish the intense fire. This newspaper reported that over 25 people were seriously burned as a result of this explosion and fire.

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Positively #Petaluma Interview With Actor Adrian Grenier

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An August 23 Facebook post by Adrian Grenier caused a big stir in Petaluma. His post garnered over 1000 “Likes” and several comments and shares by Petalumans. His status showed him with friends at our annual Taste of Petaluma with comment “Rockin’ #TasteOfPetaluma w/@catatomic @rbcsavage awesome delicious day”.  This caused Positively Petaluma to want to find out more and share his experience here.

Post by Adrian Grenier.

Adrian Grenier visited our town and attended our annual event while visiting family friends. The following interview was completed while Adrian was in Greece and would not have been possible without the help of Laura Sunday who hosted Adrian during his stay in Petaluma.  Adrian is an actor, producer, director and musician most notable playing the lead role of Vincent Chase in the Emmy nominated HBO original series Entourage.  In this interview Adrian tells us about his experience here in Petaluma and a documentary he is working on.

Wayne: You played the role of Anne Hathaway’s boyfriend Nate who was a chef in the movie Devil Wears Prada. Petaluma has a lot of talented chefs and has quickly become a culinary destination according to a recent KRON 4 and Yelp report. You had the opportunity to experience our Taste of Petaluma.  Which part of the culinary and craft spirits experience did you like best? Food, beer or the wine?

Adrian: All three. I love a festival that celebrates locally grown goods. But it’s not all about the food, if it was we’d all be shuffling around eating silently. An event like this is all about friends coming together. Food is a big part of my life. My mother has a great devotion to good tasting things. I like to think I surround myself with people who care about what they eat. It makes life more enjoyable.

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“Save Lives Sonoma” helps 13-Year Old Lewis Save The Life Of His Father with CPR

                    Photo Kent Porter, Press Democrat, 2014

According to an Press Democrat Article “Forestville teen saves dad’s life“ and EMS1’s based on the same Randi Rossman Press story “Calif. teen’s CPR saves father, impresses responders“,  Lewis Griffith, a 13-year old from Forestville, learned how to save his father’s life in a P.E. class at Forestville Academy.   This education was part of a countywide effort by a coalition of emergency responders and health agencies called Save Lives Sonoma. They target and teach seventh-graders hands-on CPR.  According to the article his father slumped unconscious and not breathing on the kitchen floor, and Lewis announced to his startled mother he knew what to do.  Firefighters arrived on the scene with the teen working on his father on his own.

The article provides background from #Petaluma’s Fire Battalion Chief Jeff Schach who adds “The reason we picked seventh-graders is they’re smart enough to learn it and teach it to the rest of their family and friends and they’re not too cool for it yet,”  Schach, who coordinates Petaluma Fire Department’s efforts with Save Lives Sonoma, said about 2,000 people in the south county have been taught, including hundreds of middle-schoolers. Hundreds more area students are slated to get the training in the next several months.  “We’re already seeing results,” Schach said, noting five people have been saved by someone stepping up to do the chest compressions in the past two years. “There’s been a drastic increase in the amount of bystanders doing (hands-only) CPR.”

Here is a video from the Save Lives Sonoma YouTube page released about 4 months ago.

From Marketing Executive to #Petaluma Farmer: Deborah Walton created Canvas Ranch

When you hear about the Walton’s on a ranch, you can’t help to think about the American Television show ‘The Little House on The Prairie.’ But these Walton’s are not from Spencer’s Mountain or Simi Valley. Deborah is a native to Mill Valley who replanted with husband Tim, an artist, in the Two Rock Valley.

9-27-2014 Best LR-9I had the pleasure of meeting Deborah at Graffiti Restaurant one night while listening to Peter Welker’s Jazz Sextet on the Petaluma Riverfront.  Deborah is a former marketing executive for Santa Rosa Junior College and Bodega Land Trust.  Besides ranching she still helps a non-profit Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Santa Rosa with marketing communications.

One way she creates luck for herself is to read the classified ads (today for her it is craigslist). She found a three line ad with a piece of property on it…and she said “Oh my god, it’s actually affordable and it was right around the corner from where we were currently renting” Tim was in New York at the time and she called him up and said “Hi honey. I bought a farm.”

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VIDEO UPDATE: #Petaluma’s Laurie Figone gets her shot on the big screen on TNT’s “On The Menu”

                            Photo Courtesy of TNT

Update 10/12/2014:  YouTube video Cooking With Laurie Figone at the 2014 Sonoma County Fair on September 1, 2014; In the first six and a half minutes of this video Laurie tells the story how she came to be on television and the amazing story on how she chose the music for her show and met country western talent Pete Stringfellow, with records like Pole Dance and titles such as It Ain’t Nothin.

 

This self-proclaimed “cook-a-holic” is a native of Novato and currently resides in Petaluma. Joe Wolfcale of the Novato Advance interviews Laurie Figone a 55-year-old mother of two whose first show “On The Menu” (a cooking show featuring Ty Pennington and chef Emeril Lagasse) will air for the first time Friday, Oct. 17 beginning at 8 p.m. on TNT and will feature the cuisine of California Pizza Kitchen.

Growing up on the Leveroni Brothers Dairy ranch in rural Novato, she studied agriculture at Petaluma High School. She is a proponent of using locally sourced ingredients from Sonoma and Marin County. In the interview she says “There are some delicious things being grown around these parts,” She also goes on to say “My dream is to one day have a sponsor for my show,” Figone said. “Everyone loves Sonoma and Marin, and they all want to know what’s being produced there.”

Click here for the entire interview.