Background
Alice was born on April 30, 1877 in San Francisco, Calif. She was the daughter of Ferdinand Toklas, the owner of a merchandising establishment, and Emma Levinsky. She grew up, she said, in "necessary luxury. "
(Illustrated edition with 15 photos. 311 pages.)
Illustrated edition with 15 photos. 311 pages.
https://www.amazon.com/Autobiography-Alice-B-Toklas/dp/B000OKZSDA?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B000OKZSDA
(The author describes her childhood, education, and thirty...)
The author describes her childhood, education, and thirty-nine year relationship with Gertrude Stein and shares her impressions of famous writers and painters of the twenties
https://www.amazon.com/What-Remembered-Alice-B-Toklas/dp/0865471800?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=0865471800
(In this memoir-turned-cookbook, Alice B. Toklas describes...)
In this memoir-turned-cookbook, Alice B. Toklas describes her life with partner Gertrude Stein and their famed Paris salon, which entertained the great avant-garde and literary figures of their day. With dry wit and characteristic understatement Toklas ponders the ethics of killing a carp in her kitchen before stuffing it with chestnuts; decorating a fish to amuse Picasso at lunch; and travelling across France during the First World War in an old delivery truck, gathering local recipes along the way. She includes a friend's playful recipe for 'Haschiche Fudge', which promises 'brilliant storms of laughter and ecstatic reveries', much like her book.
https://www.amazon.com/Classics-Great-Food-Murder-Kitchen/dp/0241951038?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=0241951038
( Long before Julia Child discovered French cooking, Ali...)
Long before Julia Child discovered French cooking, Alice B. Toklas was sampling local dishes, collecting recipes, and cooking for the writers, artists, and expats who lived in Paris between the wars. Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Wilder, Matisse, and Picasso shared meals at the home she kept with Gertrude Stein, who famously memorialized her in The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas. The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book, however, is her true memoir: a collection of traditional French recipes that predates Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Toklas supplies familiar recipes such as coq au vin, bouillabaisse, and boeuf bourguignon, along with what is perhaps the earliest instructions for haschich fudge (which anyone could whip up on a rainy day"), and she entertains with fascinating memories of ParisToklas' home for most of her lifeand of rural France, Spain, and America.
https://www.amazon.com/Alice-B-Toklas-Cook-Book/dp/0061995363?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=0061995363
( If letter writing is a lost art, Staying on Alone is a ...)
If letter writing is a lost art, Staying on Alone is a measure of what has been lost. On tissue-thin paper in a tiny, often undecipherable hand, Alice Toklas described her daily life in Paris in absorbing detail, like a latter-day Madame de Sévigné. Here are shrewd, witty observations on some of the most interesting artists, musicians, and writers of the twentieth century: Thornton Wilder, Carl Van Vechten, Edith Sitwell, Anita Loos, Cecil Beaton, Janet Flanner, Bennett Cerf, among others. There are stories about Picasso, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Juan Gris, Cocteau, and Sartre--all revealing a sharp eye that was as much a part of Alice as her devotion to Gertrude and her passion for recipes and gardening. In preparing this collection, the editor has chosen letters of biographical, literary, and artistic significance to an understanding of Gertrude Stein and her circle, letters illustrating the catholicity of Alice Toklas's friendships and the quality of her gifts, and letters that simply delight for their gossip.
https://www.amazon.com/Staying-Alone-Letters-Alice-Toklas/dp/0871401312?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=0871401312
Alice was born on April 30, 1877 in San Francisco, Calif. She was the daughter of Ferdinand Toklas, the owner of a merchandising establishment, and Emma Levinsky. She grew up, she said, in "necessary luxury. "
She attended one of the first kindergartens in the United States, a school that her mother had helped to establish and at which she studied German, English, geography, and arithmetic. Her grandmother took her to the opera and gave her piano lessons.
In 1885-1886, Toklas and her family made an extended trip to Europe to visit her father's family, Poles who lived in Germany. On their return to America, she attended private schools in San Francisco and Mt. Rainier Seminary in Seattle, where the family lived for several years.
After being tutored for the entrance examinations, she entered the music conservatory at the University of Washington in the fall of 1893. She later wrote that the parchment she finally received certified her "as a bachelor of music. "
When her mother died in March 1897, Toklas and her father and brother went to live with her grandparents in a household that included several uncles and cousins. She became the housekeeper and learned how to ration supplies, plan menus, and deal with grocers. After the death of her grandfather in 1902, her family moved to smaller quarters. Although she worked toward a career as a concert pianist, she all but gave it up when her piano teacher died in 1904.
The San Francisco earthquake of April 1906 altered her life abruptly. When Michael Stein, the older brother of Gertrude Stein, and his wife came to San Francisco to see about repairs to their rental property, Toklas and her friend Harriet Levy, who had met the Steins in Europe, listened to their stories of life in Paris. Toklas resolved to go there, although she had to borrow the money from Levy.
On the evening of their arrival in Paris in September 1907, Toklas met Gertrude Stein. Fascinated by Stein's large "golden brown presence" and by her "deep, full, velvety" voice, Toklas felt she was in the presence of genius. Almost at once she began correcting the proofs of Stein's latest book. They also went for walks together and traveled in Spain and Italy.
When Levy returned to America, Toklas moved in at 27 rue de Fleurus, where the Stein-Toklas salon soon became one of the centers of intellectual life in Paris. The friendship between Toklas and Stein developed into a closely knit family relationship. For nearly four decades, they entertained old friends, including Picasso, Matisse, Carl Van Vechten, and Edith Sitwell, and new ones, such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Virgil Thomson, Ernest Hemingway, Sherwood Anderson, Charles Chaplin, Jo Davidson, Anita Loos, Thornton Wilder, Richard Wright, and the GIs of World War II.
Although Stein was the dominant figure, Toklas seemed to be in command. She ran the house, ordered the meals, and did most of the shopping and much of the cooking. For her, cooking was as much a cultivated art as was painting or writing. As Stein's secretary, Toklas taught herself to type, transcribing everything that was written in the blue copybooks that Stein had "adopted from French schoolchildren. "
During World War I it was Toklas who proposed that they join the American Fund for French Wounded. In their Ford car, which they had shipped from New York, they distributed relief supplies, at Perpignan, Nîmes, and Strasbourg.
Fame came to Stein with the publication of The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (1933), and both women became celebrities. When they organized the Plains Editions, their own publishing company, Toklas served as both publisher and distributor. On October 17, 1934, they left for a triumphal six-month lecture tour of America; it was the only trip either of them made to the United States once they had met.
During World War II they remained in France, living in the south at Bilignin and then at Culoz. They returned to Paris in mid-December 1944, opening their apartment on the rue Christine to soldiers and visitors. After the death of Stein in 1946, Toklas remained in the apartment; Stein's will had specified that her friend should receive "proper maintenance and support" for the rest of her life. Toklas tried to carry on their old ways. She helped ready Stein's unpublished writings for publication, and she made herself available to writers and scholars.
Toklas then began her own writing career. n "They Who Came to Paris to Write", she supplied her own keen and insightful comments on writers she had met and known. In "Fifty Years of French Fashions", she reviewed the history of haute couture as she had known it; she remembered warning Stein once not to reveal the fact that they were wearing clothes designed by Pierre Balmain. "We look like gypsies, " she said. In "The Rue Dauphine Refuses the Revolution", she predicted that there would be no revolution in France. In other pieces, she remembered Scott Fitzgerald, Sylvia Beach, and Matisse. Toklas was famous for her rich cooking; her first published book was The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook (1954), which achieved popularity for both its gourmet recipes and her cryptic comments.
The most famous recipe is for hashish fudge, contributed by her artist friend Brion Gysin. A second cookbook, Aromas and Flavors of Past and Present (1958), was assembled by Poppy Cannon, who altered it for American tastes. Toklas disapproved of the changes and said that she would never use it herself. In What Is Remembered (1963), she recalled her early days in San Francisco and Seattle and her life in Paris. Staying on Alone: Letters of Alice B. Toklas, edited by Edward Burns (1973), contains a detailed record of her last years.
In August 1960 she journeyed to Rome for a stay with the sisters in the Monastery of the Precious Blood. She returned to Paris in June 1961. Evicted from the old apartment, which had been sold, she moved to the rue de la Convention in 1964. Without money, she was aided by friends who organized a fund for her.
She died in Paris.
(The author describes her childhood, education, and thirty...)
( If letter writing is a lost art, Staying on Alone is a ...)
( Long before Julia Child discovered French cooking, Ali...)
(In this memoir-turned-cookbook, Alice B. Toklas describes...)
(Illustrated edition with 15 photos. 311 pages.)
In December 1957, Toklas, whose family was Jewish, was admitted to the Catholic church, remembering, she said, that she was "baptized a Catholic as a small child with my mother's knowledge. "
Quotations:
“In the menu, there should be a climax and a culmination. Come to it gently. One will suffice. ”
“Experience is never at bargain price. ”
“Godiva was tired and old and Gertrude Stein in spring bought a new car. .. ”
“The French approach to food is characteristic; they bring to their consideration of the table the same appreciation, respect, intelligence and lively interest that they have for the other arts, for painting, for literature, and for the theatre. We foreigners living in France respect and appreciate this point of view but deplore their too strict observance of a tradition which will not admit the slightest deviation in a seasoning or the suppression of a single ingredient. Restrictions aroused our American ingenuity, we found combinations and replacements which pointed in new directions and created a fresh and absorbing interest in everything pertaining to the kitchen. ”
“This has been a most wonderful evening. Gertrude has said things tonight it will take her 10 years to understand. ”
Toklas's later years were very difficult because of poor health and financial problems. She was suffering from arthritis and cataracts.
Toklas decided to escape her challenging family situation in 1907, choosing to travel to Paris with her longtime friend Harriet Levy. There she met writer Gertrude Stein, and she soon began to assist Stein in her literary work by typing up her manuscripts for her.
A love developed between Toklas and Stein that would be one of literature’s longest-lasting relationships. They officially moved in together in 1910, and they gave each other numerous pet names. Stein often called Toklas “wifey” and “baby precious” and Toklas referred to Stein as “husband” and “lovey, ” according to Baby Precious Always Shines: Selected Love Notes Between Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. Toklas seemed to take the “wife” term to heart, tackling all of the traditional duties of the day. She ran their household while Stein devoted herself to her craft.
At their home, Stein and Toklas hosted an array of the eras literary and artistic greats, including Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Pablo Picasso. These special gatherings were known as a salon, and Toklas and Stein divided up their parties. While Stein talked with creative stars, Toklas gathered with their wives in another room. She even cooked for the guests sometimes, and she later earned some acclaim for her food. However, their life together wasn’t all fine meals and stimulating conversations: During World War I, Toklas and Stein served as volunteer ambulance drivers.
Toklas was by Stein’s side when she passed away on July 27, 1946, in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France. According to several reports, she heard Stein’s final words, which were “What is the answer? . . . In that case, what is the question?” Stein tried to make lifetime provisions for Toklas in her will, as there was no way to officially recognize their relationship at the time.