Is there such a thing as an original recipe?

A color combination you’ve seen in a piece of art your grandmother gifted you; a citron green chair on a pink and burgundy rug. The brain starts concocting a pickled watermelon rind laying atop a bowl of cold watermelon soup.

My point is that everything comes from somewhere.

In many cases, chefs are inspired by flavors in other restaurants, amidst their travels, at a convenience store, and the items that end up on their menus are merely their iteration of those flavors.

There’s a great deal of creativity, skill, and technique that turn say…Cheetos into the crispy duck breast with sharp cheddar dust and wilted watercress that end up on the menu. It’s funny to me that at any time, on any outing, in any place we all stand to be inspired.

Sometimes the only difference between the inspired and the uninspired is the former is open to it. Seeking it, even. They look at the world through a lens of wonder.

They consider even a blade of grass not as something mundane and typical but as something with which the senses can absorb. How does it smell, taste, touch, feel?

I love the idea that my food is a combination of a conversation I had at work, an unusual street sign, an unripe banana I had for breakfast, a scene I read about a microwave, and some hot sauce I had that was too spicy.

It all mixes together in a beautiful slurry of ideas, so intertwined that no singular piece of inspiration can be identified or credited. And this happens over and over till the end of time, which kind of means we’ll eat each other’s feelings and ideas forever. And I suppose that’s what I love about food.

I’m glad I have this gift or maybe I’ve taught myself this gift. But, sometimes I don’t need it. The inspiration is on a plate set in front of by the wonderful people at Abigail Street in Cincinnati. They combined roasted beets bathed in a punchy lemon vinaigrette, scattered with wilted baby kale, and topped with toasty hazelnuts.

The finishing moment was a dollop of labneh, a Middle Eastern strained yogurt. Each bite was crackley with hazelnut and silky with firm cubes of beet. The lemon vinaigrette gave every bite fresh life and I’m still thinking about it several days later.

It just so happens that as promised, my good friends at Foxhole Farms selected beets as the pick of the moment so to speak. Typically, the beet is rubbed with olive oil, wrapped in foil, and roasted at about 400 degrees, the skin then rubbed off.

This method is completely passable and avails the cubed beets to any number of applications.

However, it does not convert the beet-averse, which it seems is the majority of the population. When asked, “do you like beets?” I have heard someone respond, “that depends, are they Whitney’s beets?”

And while my method does take a bit more effort, it puts out a beet cube that has roasty seasoned sides and a tender interior. Which even if you are part of the (incorrect) group that believes they taste like dirt, is hard to resist.

Once these beets have been roasted my way they can land on top of salads, grain bowls, or as a tomato replacement in a bruschetta topping. But, if you go a step further and toss in a little lemon vinaigrette as they do at Abigail Street, some lightly browned hazelnuts, a wilted green and a scoop of labneh, it will not be original but it will be unforgettable.

“But First, Food” columnist Whitney Kling is a recipe developer who lives in Southwest Ohio with her four kids, two cats and a food memoir that’s ever-nearing completion. If she’s not playing tennis or at a yoga class, she’s in the kitchen creating something totally addictive — and usually writing about it.

BASIC ROASTED BEETS

Serves 4

Cook Time: 35 minutes

2 lbs beets, peeled and cubed into ½ inch cubes

3 T olive oil

2 t Kosher salt

1 t black pepper

Visit Abigail Street at 1214 Vine St. Cincinnati, if you’d like to have the original inspiration and perhaps find some other inspiration along the way.