I would like to see people more aware of where their food comes

Host: The sun had just begun to sink, spilling orange light across the edges of the city. The marketplace — usually loud with voices, bargaining, and footsteps — now breathed its slow evening sigh. Crates of vegetables sat half-empty. The smell of earth, fruit, and smoke mingled in the cooling air.

Jack stood beside a wooden stall, his shirt sleeves rolled up, grey eyes fixed on the worn hands of an old farmer tying a bundle of herbs. Jeeny stood beside him, her basket filled with carrots still dusted with soil, tomatoes the color of blood and sun, and a loaf of bread that still steamed faintly through the paper.

Above the stall hung a piece of cardboard, written in thick, hand-drawn ink:

"I would like to see people more aware of where their food comes from. I would like to see small farmers empowered. I feed my daughter almost exclusively organic food." — Anthony Bourdain

The farmer smiled faintly as he counted change, the wrinkles in his face like the furrows of his field. Jack watched him with a kind of detached curiosity, the way one might watch an old ritual still clinging to a vanishing world.

Jeeny: “He meant it, you know. Bourdain. When he said that. He saw how disconnected we’ve become — how people eat every day and never wonder who grew the food, or what it cost to grow it.”

Jack: “Yeah. I read that quote once. Sounds noble. But let’s be honest — most people don’t have the time or money to think that way. They just want something quick and cheap that fills them up.”

Host: The wind brushed past, stirring a thin veil of dust from the ground. Jeeny’s hair caught the light — strands of black silk swaying softly against her cheek. Her eyes carried that quiet, enduring fire — the kind that lights slowly, never burns out.

Jeeny: “That’s exactly the problem, Jack. We’ve turned food into fuel. Something to keep us running, instead of something that connects us.”

Jack: “Connects us to what? Dirt? Weather? Some farmer miles away? That’s romantic talk, not reality.”

Jeeny: “Reality is precisely that, Jack. Dirt and weather and human hands. The fact that your bread starts in someone’s sweat, not in a supermarket.”

Jack: “And you think buying a few carrots from a farmer’s market fixes that?”

Jeeny: “It doesn’t fix it. But it remembers it.”

Host: Jack let out a short laugh, low and tired, almost sad. The sky above them deepened — violet bruising into indigo. Around them, stalls began to close, the clatter of boxes echoing like footsteps in an empty theater.

Jack: “You always talk like there’s poetry in everything. But farmers are struggling because people can’t afford their prices. You want empowerment? Empower them with better systems, not sentiment.”

Jeeny: “Systems begin with awareness. You can’t fight for what you don’t see.”

Jack: “Awareness doesn’t change the price of fertilizer.”

Jeeny: “No. But it changes hearts — and hearts change laws.”

Host: The old farmer behind them coughed, lifting his basket into a truck. His hands, rough and scarred, seemed carved from the very soil he tilled. Jeeny watched him for a long moment before speaking again, her voice softer now.

Jeeny: “When my grandmother cooked, she knew where every grain of rice came from. She used to say, ‘The land remembers who respects it.’ Now kids think rice grows in plastic bags.”

Jack: “Maybe that’s just progress. People don’t need to farm anymore — they can do other things, make real money.”

Jeeny: “Progress that forgets its roots always falls. You think technology feeds us? It doesn’t. The earth still does. And the people bending over it still do.”

Host: The market lights flickered on — long strings of bulbs casting warm gold over the cooling air. The buzz of the lights hummed like old conversation.

Jack: “You think I don’t care? I grew up in a mining town, Jeeny. My father used to trade his labor for food. He’d dig through rock for twelve hours, and we’d get a sack of potatoes from the farmer down the road. You know what he said once? He said, ‘This system breaks your back twice — once in the mine, once in the market.’ That’s what I see here. Farmers trapped in poverty because the world moved on.”

Jeeny: “Then help them move with it. Not abandon them.”

Jack: “How? By buying artisanal lettuce?”

Jeeny: “By valuing what sustains you. By not pretending that convenience is freedom.”

Host: The air between them trembled slightly — the way air does before thunder, not from the sky but from within. The distant sound of a bus engine rolled across the street. The lights of the market flickered again, shadows stretching across Jack’s face like a thought he couldn’t quite escape.

Jeeny: “You admire Bourdain, don’t you?”

Jack: “I respect him. He saw the world for what it was — raw, imperfect. But he also knew people don’t always have choices. You can’t moralize hunger.”

Jeeny: “I’m not moralizing it. I’m humanizing it.”

Jack: “And what’s the difference?”

Jeeny: “Morality judges. Humanity understands.”

Host: A small pause, the kind that bends a conversation from argument into reflection. The smell of roasted corn drifted through the air. A woman at a nearby stall laughed, her hands red from washing beets.

Jeeny: “You see her? She wakes at 3 a.m. to harvest. She sells here all day. She barely breaks even. And still she smiles. That’s what empowerment looks like, Jack — not wealth, but dignity.”

Jack: “Dignity doesn’t pay bills.”

Jeeny: “Neither does cynicism.”

Host: Jack’s jaw tightened. He turned toward the farmer again — the man was locking up his stall, humming a faint tune, something old and wordless. For a moment, Jack’s eyes softened.

Jack: “You know… my mother used to garden. Tiny patch behind the house. She said vegetables taste different when you grow them yourself. I thought she was just being sentimental.”

Jeeny: “Was she wrong?”

Jack: “No. They did taste different.”

Jeeny: “Maybe they tasted like effort — like memory.”

Host: The light above them began to dim as the last stalls closed. The street was quieter now, save for the soft rustle of leaves and the crickets singing somewhere beyond the buildings.

Jack: “You know, maybe Bourdain was right. People should be more aware. But awareness won’t feed a family. It’s idealism.”

Jeeny: “Idealism is the seed. Reality grows from it.”

Jack: “And what if the soil’s too hard?”

Jeeny: “Then we keep tilling.”

Host: Her words fell gently, like the dust settling on the empty tables. Jack leaned against the stall, crossing his arms, his eyes caught somewhere between defiance and thought.

Jack: “So what do you want, Jeeny? Everyone to buy organic? Grow their own gardens? Live like monks with compost bins?”

Jeeny: “I want people to remember that food is a relationship — not a transaction. I want small farmers to know their work matters. And I want children to know that what’s on their plate came from someone’s care, not just a factory’s process.”

Jack: “You think that awareness changes anything big?”

Jeeny: “It changes us. And we’re the beginning of big things.”

Host: A long silence settled over them. The city lights glowed in the distance — a thousand windows shining like tiny promises. Jack looked down at the vegetables in Jeeny’s basket: the dirt, the imperfections, the life still clinging to them.

He picked up a tomato, rubbed it gently against his palm, and held it to his nose. The scent was sharp, alive, nothing like the cold, perfect ones in supermarkets.

Jack: “You’re right. It smells like… something real.”

Jeeny: “It smells like where we come from.”

Host: The camera would have pulled back now — the two of them standing amid the remains of the market, shadows long, light soft, the last echoes of day lingering like a memory.

A thin rain began to fall, slow and silver, catching the glow of the lamps. Jeeny reached into her basket, tore a piece of bread, and handed it to Jack.

Jeeny: “Eat.”

Jack: “What is it?”

Jeeny: “It’s food, Jack. It’s what connects us.”

Host: Jack took the bread. They ate in silence, as the rain fell softly around them — the city breathing, the fields somewhere beyond the horizon still waiting for dawn.

In the air between them hung the quiet truth of Bourdain’s words — a truth born not from luxury, but from humility, from soil, and from love:

"I would like to see people more aware of where their food comes from. I would like to see small farmers empowered. I feed my daughter almost exclusively organic food."

And under the light rain, awareness began to grow.