Memorialized in The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, which was of course written by her more famous partner Gertrude Stein, Toklas did in fact write a memoir of her own—her personal cook book. Collecting recipes and sampling local dishes, Toklas delved into the culinary traditions of France long before Julia Child, and her nuanced directions are mingled with commentary, anecdotes, and observations of dinners shared with Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Wilder, Matisse, Picasso, and other writers and artists in Paris between the wars. "It could almost be called a work of literary modernism," noted Janet Malcolm, while James Beard proclaimed "Alice was one of the really great cooks of all time."