Chelsey Dyer | The Movements of Dancer-Artist LB

Earlier this week, my friends KokoraKara, Ms. Dyer (aka SeaCats) and I planned a craft night. I elected to host and we all agreed that there MUST be tasty snacks! But what to make? KokoraKara is vegan, and she had found a recipe that claimed to replicate the ever delicious Lara Bars. This amazing recipe from Enlightened Cooking, in fact!
I set out to attempt the basic bar.

However, because I was making for 3 hungry craft ladies, I increased my proportions. This is what I ended up using and doing:

Homemade Raw/Vegan/Sweet Tasty Snacks

1 Cup roughly chopped dates

1 Cup mixed raisins & dried cranberries

1/4 Cup whole raw almonds

1/8 Teaspoon ground cinnamon

Because my kitchen doesn’t have a food processor, I used our blender. I chopped the dates up as much as I could before putting them in. Chopping the raisins+cranberries seemed too troublesome, so they just went straight in.

Ok, now I’m positive that this recipe is easy breezy with a food processor. Using a blender works, but it takes a lot of muscle and ends up being extremely messy! I had to keep packing/mixing/mashing/scooping out goop to help the blender do its thing. It worked eventually, but it’s never a good sign when your roomie comes in and pours you a sympathy beer just because he’s been hearing you curse for an hour! Much appreciated, but still…

In the end, I had some lovely brown goop that was delicious when I licked it off my fingers. Dried fruits (especially dates) truly are nature’s candy! I decided to let the blender rest and hand chopped the raw almonds as finely as I could. I added those and the cinnamon and dove back in to get my hands sticky mixing everything up. You really have to use your hands. I cannot see how a spoon would ever work with the density of the goop!

I decided that instead of bars, I would make little round treats instead. I rolled them using my hands and placed them in a ziplock bag. The amount of ingredients I used resulted in 14 mini Lara “balls” I stuck them in the fridge for about an hour.

They were extremely tasty, deemed a rousing success by the ladies, gave us energy to craft well into the night, and were worth the effort! I’m not sure when I’ll try it again, because again I say, a food processor is a must! Phew…

There are several projects I’ve completed over the last couple months that I’d like to showcase. So I’ve decided to write about one every day for the rest of the week until they’re all up.

When I was working at Currents, on Valencia, I wanted to make something for my coworkers because they have inspired me so much in the business of arts and crafts. I’ve also been wanting to start painting again, but didn’t have a lot of money or materials to work with. The project I decided on was to do portraits of my coworkers on cardboard. I took photos of my coworkers when we were at work together to have images to work from.

The first portrait I did was of my coworker friend who was leaving for a long stay in Japan. That portrait I painted with coffee and wine, which was really fun, and I did accents with pens. Unfortunately I didn’t get any photos of it because I had to finish it in a hurry. Hopefully when she comes back at the end of the month I can get some photos of it.

My other two coworker friends’ portraits I finished before I left Currents and gave them during my last couple days there. I used cardboard again, but this time my new roommate B let me use his tempera paints. It’s funny, I didn’t have a lot of colors on hand, but it worked out perfectly, as I wanted to paint the portraits using my friends’ favorite colors, and that’s what I ended up having! Sometimes, I really think having the challenge of limits actually makes art better. As scary as some of my limitations can seem right now, I have to embrace them as a chance to grow.

Here are the visuals!