Alice Babette Toklas was born in San Francisco to Ferdinand and Emma Levinsky Toklas and grew up in San Francisco and Seattle, where her father was a merchant. Her family was of the Jewish middle class, and she was educated in private schools and at the University of Seattle. She was given piano lessons, and when she was in her mid-twenties, she thought seriously of becoming a concert pianist. She described herself as being on the fringe of San Francisco's "Bohemians," the literary and artistic group which flourished at the turn of the century.

Her life changed considerably after the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. In the spring of that year, she met Michael and Sarah Stein, the brother and sister-in-law of Gertrude Stein, when they came to San Francisco to assess damage done by the earthquake to property which they owned in the city. The couple, along with...