One thing I don't like, however, is the inability to remove the menu from the aide bar. Sure, you can create a custom menu, amke it empty, and assign it, but that still leaves the MENU header there.
I tried using CSS to set it to display:none, but no go. Dunno why.....
Ultimately, I ended up commenting out the function that calls the menu.
The function is called in the file:
content-- themes--verbosa--includes--core.php
Look around line 150+ for this section:
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And comment it out.
No more menu.
Remember that whenever you update the theme, you'll have to go back in and comment it out again.