Starting The Loop, For Just a Specific Category

Hi everyone,

I’ve heard that there is a plugin that allows you to control which categories are shown on your homepage. That’s not exactly what I’m looking for.

I’m asking, in the code sense, where would you define that you only want a specific category to be looped through and displayed.

I want a certain category to display in the sidebar (their title, content, everything) and am not sure how to achieve this?

I’m guessing that there is a parameter that you can add to one of the following tags, but I wasn’t able to find it in the codex/docs.

<?php if (have_posts()) : ?>
<?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>

Any help will be greatly appreciated.