Born in San Francisco, California, in a middle-class Jewish family, she was a close friend and lover of Gertrude Stein, whom she met in Paris in 1907, and writer of a cult cookbook. Alice B. Toklas was 30 when she first met Gertrude Stein who was then 33.

Toklas arrived in Paris in 1907. The day after her arrival she met Gertrude Stein. After nearly a year's courtship, Toklas moved in with Stein, and they decided to consider themselves "married". Toklas did the cooking, typed all of Stein's manuscripts, and kept house while Stein concentrated on her writing.

They survived WWII, remaining in France, thanks to the protection of friends, at their summer house in Bellay. They spent the time groving vegetables, passing messages for the Resistance and trying to hide their Jewish identity from the German soldiers they were forced to billet.

They were together for 39 years. After Stein died in 1946 of cancer, she went through a battle with Stein's relatives over her inheritnce, and at one point faced sustained poverty. Toklas continued to live in Paris and became renowned for her cookbook that she wrote in order to make some money.