Where do you live in D.C.? #18

Where do we live in D.C.?

We live about 2 blocks from where portions of the famous cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking were written in the late 1950's.  No joke.

At 2706 Olive Street in Georgetown sits a small wooden, federal-style house built after the Civil War.  In 1948, Julia and Paul Child purchased the house and lived there before relocating to Europe. According to Realestate.Boston.com, "The Childs, who had met in what was then Ceylon when both worked for the OSS, bought the house in May 1948, after they returned to Washington from overseas. In their first year on Olive Street, Child struggled to impress her new husband with a limited culinary repertoire,and toiled in the kitchen late at night. “I’d usually plop something on the table by 10 p.m., have a few bites, and collapse into bed,’’ she wrote in her memoir, “My Life in France.’’"

They returned to the house in 1956 after Julia had become an accomplished chef while living in Paris and elsewhere in Europe.  The Childs lived there until l959.  During the time in D.C., Julia worked on French recipes and wrote portions of Mastering the Art of French Cooking.   She later wrote, “Most of my time was spent revising and retyping our now dog-eared, note-filled, butter-and-food-stained manuscript.’’  She also taught weekly cooking classes in her kitchen: quiche aux fruits de mer, coq au vin, tarte aux pommes.  The Childs moved to Massachusetts in 1959.   

Unfortunately, the house on Olive Street has suffered from decades of neglect.  Today, Julia Child's "little jewel on Olive Street" is a sad sight with peeling paint, rotting wood and a sagging foundation.  After all, it is a wood house built 150 years ago. 

Not to worry.  In 2015, the house was purchased by a fan of Julia Child who is working to restore it.  After working through the multi-year permitting process, he recently started reconstruction of the house.  Currently, the interior is demolished down to its studs and the cellar is being repaired.   

You can see the ongoing renovation for yourself on Facebook or Instagram (jewelonolive).

https://www.facebook.com/jewelonolive/

Julia Child has another D.C. connection.  The kitchen from her Cambridge, Massachusetts house that was used in her televisions shows is on view in the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.

Bon appétit!

P.S.  Click here for a laugh.