Many know her for her pot-laced brownie recipe, but in this book Toklas describes her childhood, education, and thirty-nine year relationship with Gertrude Stein and shares her impressions of famous writers and painters of the 1920s. People remember American writer Alice Babette Toklas as Gertrude Stein’s life partner; her works include cookbooks and a volume of memoirs. She joined Stein as a member of the Parisian avant-garde of the early 20th century. Born to a Polish army officer in a middle-class Jewish family, she attended schools in San Francisco and Seattle. For a short time, she also studied music at the University of Washington. She arrived in Paris and met on 8 September 1907. Together, they hosted a salon that attracted expatriates, such as Ernest Hemingway, Paul Bowles, Thornton Wilder, and Sherwood Anderson, and avant-garde painters, including Picasso, Matisse, and Braque. Toklas, a background figure, acted as confidante, secretary, muse, editor, critic, and general organizer and chiefly living in the shadow until she published in 1933 under the teasing title The Autobiography of Alice Babette Toklas , bestselling book.