My friend Bahri and I, we like to eat.
We stroll around İzmir bazar and, as a dessert avant-l'heure we pick up a box of donuts, fried and doused in sugar water. The family of a deceased person pays a company to hand these out for free, so that prayers be spoken for their lost loved one. What we are eating are İzmir lokması, typical to the region: elsewhere in the country Helva is usually used.
Out of politeness I do as the other line-standers and mumble a few words for a just-in-case deity as I receive my plate, but Volkan is more rigorous in his atheism, and just happily munches away.

Next thing, we get truely hungry though, so we go for a a Kumru sandviç (Kumru being the sesame covered buns special to Izmir), before picking up plastic cups of turşu, that is, pickled cabbage and cucumber in their brine. The 2-4-1 snack and drink combination is sold with a straw, and changes its colour to a bright orange as the street vendor ("Does our little sister like it spicey?") adds a shot of hot sauce to it all.
Duely refreshed we head to an alleyway eatery where we order some cheap but delicious cheese Pide which, along with a small plastic basket of large-leafed and spicey roca salad, are served plateless, on a sheet of paper, with only a large kitchen knife handed to each of us by way of cutlery.