little house on the crimson prairie

Last week featured a visit from A Certain Friend, a private person who has said she would be happy if she was never again mentioned by name on this blog.* While walking around Harvard Square, ACF started listing her all-time ten favorite books, which included Ulysses and a book about how to live your life like Jacqueline Onassis. She also listed a memoir of Julia Child's, and said: "Do you know she lived in Cambridge?"
"I was told her house is like 2-3 blocks from where I live."

Like Vulcans with the Pon Farr, we could then talk or think of nothing else until we visited this house. Luckily, we were able to text-message a friend with Google skills who found the address for us (103 Irving Street).

I'd walked by many times, not knowing its culinary-cultural significance. According to ACF, Julia Child refers to the house repeatedly in her memoir as her "little house in Cambridge." This is what counts as a little house in the world of Julia Child:



* Or even indirectly mentioned, she added, but don't you think that's a little too much to ask?