Observing Strangers with The Stranger

I love these vintage Vintage covers.

In weeding and reorganizing all of my books recently, I came across this vintage copy of The Stranger, which I've been carting around since graduate school and never read.  Now I know I should have read it years ago whilst an undergraduate at BYU, a forbidden cup of black coffee cooling in front of me at Bob's Big Boy, but that didn't happen.

So I'm reading it now while I sat in a local dessert cafe and overheard a class on chocolate souffles being taught by the resident pastry chef.  It was a small class of three as you can see, and so I was able to observe--for free!--the manner in which the chef beat the egg whites and hear him discuss egg protein and meringue, and the fact that the chocolate used was 72% cacao and then jealously watch them all eat it. 

I'm liking the book, which opens with the narrator impassively taking part in the small events leading up to his mother's funeral and then his mother's funeral.  I don't know.  Already, I can see that I might be a little old for it. 

The dude on the left just finished his MBA at Cornell and is headed to silicon valley.  I overheard pretty much everything.