The Power of Constraints: How Limitations Spark Creative Brilliance

Born from scarcity, discovering new dimensions of flavor in grilled cheese and guacamole.

Rough Chop is a bi-monthly tasty and emotional freestyle. These are the golden snapshots of life, seen from the edge of your favorite knife, stories told through the lens of food and travel. Rough Chop is entirely user-supported. I offer a free subscription to all, so please subscribe and follow! If you enjoy what you’re reading, every paid subscription level contributes to sustaining this hungry writer and is greatly appreciated. Now, let's continue our adventure…

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There are more things I don’t know than things I do. I constantly question, get proven incorrect, and discover new things every day. But one thing I am certain of is this: that limitations often lead to creative excellence. The best ideas are born from scarcity. Frida Kahlo's masterpieces were created from emotional pain and physical restrictions. Pablo Picasso's Blue Period was a result of his dire financial situation, which afforded him only a limited color palette. Perhaps you yourself have felt this, a burst of energy and focus when the constraint of time is closing in around you as you get closer and closer to an impending deadline.

Constraint is perhaps an artist's greatest arena. The same philosophy applies to those in the culinary arts. We see it time and time again; most of our favorite recipes are rooted in a history when time, resources, and ingredients were constrained. We're forced to create sustenance for ourselves or our families with what we have in the moment. Today, it has become entertainment. Countless cooking shows are now based on just such a premise—determining who can make the best dish with limited ingredients and time. Yet, as grocery prices continue to rise, an increasing number of people in the United States and across the globe are being pushed to create more with less.

In the last few weeks, two such recipes were born in my kitchen. Meals derived from the few ingredients I had left in my refrigerator by the end of the week that were so delicious, I’ve recreated them several times since.

The first is titled “the half-bottle sandwich” as it was first made at the end of a long night with friends, after the consumption of half a bottle of whiskey. It’s essentially a grilled cheese sandwich with onions. Tillamook sharp cheddar, butter, and Dave’s Killer Bread. However, given it was midnight, and a grilled cheese without tomato soup feels like a blind date that’s been stood up, I zhuzhed it up by adding thinly sliced raw white onions between the layers of cheese and bread. The sandwich was devoured, which after a day and night of drinking, isn’t that impressive. However, the next morning, I recreated the sandwich only this time making a simple 3-egg omelet first (whisked from our last 3 eggs and a splash of cream). Since I was making two sandwiches, I sliced the omelet in half, and then began sandwich construction. Buttered bread, cheese, onions, egg, a little more cheese to keep the sandwich secure, and grilled it to golden perfection over low heat. Thus, the “full bottle” sandwich was born, and a new Sunday morning special in our home. My apologies for the lack of pictures for this. We ate the sandwiches before I remembered to snap the photo.

Next is the best guacamole I’ve ever made. Yep, I said it. And it breaks a lot of guacamole rules. Recently, I was diagnosed with PCOS and borderline high cholesterol. As a result, we’ve made some changes to our diet, and I’ve been looking for more heart-healthy foods to eat throughout the week, especially at lunchtime. I had 2 corn tortillas left which I began to toast in the oven as the base of my guacamole tostada. While it toasted, I smashed my last avocado and some leftover chopped onions from the night before. Here’s where I go a bit off the rails. I usually like to add chopped tomatoes to my guac; however, we didn't have any on hand. But we did have some pomegranate seeds which are often a part of a morning yogurt or eaten as a snack. They are red, sweet, delightful pops of sweet juicy goodness: why not, I thought. So I added a few scoops of the seeds to my avocado mash. I saw the last of some feta cheese from dinner earlier in the week, so I chopped that up as well and mixed it into the avocado mash. With just the smallest pinch of salt to elevate the sweetness of the berries, I mixed it all together. The result, my friends, is pure avocado joy. The pomegranate berries and feta add a bright sweet and salty combo to the creaminess of the avocado and the savory bite of the onions. On top of a freshly toasted tortilla, and this is my new favorite go-to for lunch. I don’t know if I’ll ever make guacamole the same after this.

Delving a bit deeper, because it’s what I love to do, I see a lot of our humanity in this process. Taking the pieces we have, some left over from before, others there out of our own need to survive, to improve our health and well-being, and we just do the best we can with what we have. We make the most of our lives, mixing and patching together the pieces we are left with to nourish ourselves from day to day. To make these ends meet so that we can rise again tomorrow and do it all over again. So, when it’s the end of the week, and your remaining groceries seem dire, do like I do, and pretend you're on Chopped and just start making. Who knows what genius will come up? And chances are, if it’s leftover ingredients you’ve already been using, the combination will at least be edible, if not damn delicious.