French Field Notes from May
The books, films, pastries, and small French obsessions that stayed with me this month.
When my Year of Living French series wrapped, a lot of you wrote in asking the same thing: but are you still going to tell us about France? The answer is a resounding YES. That series had a finish line — this life doesn’t. I’m still waking up here, still fumbling through French conversations at the boulangerie, still finding new corners of this country that catch me off guard.
So I’m folding France into my monthly roundup itself.
Every month, I’ll bottle up the books, the pastries, the playlists, the pharmacy finds, the tiny villages worth the train ride. The recipes that stuck, the songs that kept returning, the phrases I keep trying to translate to my American friends and failing in the best way.
I don’t think the moments that hold our attention are random. They tug at us for a reason, hinting at the shifts happening under the surface. Paying attention to them feels like tracing the outline of who we’re becoming — and these days, who I’m becoming is more French than I ever expected.
Here’s what stayed with me this month. Maybe you’ll find something to borrow, or maybe it’ll spark your own list of what’s worth carrying forward into the weeks ahead.
Enjoy, friends 🫶🏽
A book I read
We Would Never Tell by Anne-Sophie Jouhanneau, who was kind enough to send me a copy. I read it while the actual Cannes Film Festival was happening, which felt almost too perfect. I live a 15-minute train ride from Cannes, so the whole thing felt like watching the story unfold in my own backyard.
Here’s the premise: it’s Hollywood, but make it French. Twelve days of red carpets and A-listers descending on the Riviera while the rest of the world watches with a heavy dose of envy. Three young, ambitious, talented women are circling the edges of it all, unable to claw their way up from the bottom rung of the industry. The VIP invitations stay just out of reach, the spotlight stays just out of focus, and slowly the wanting starts to twist into something darker. Then a multi-million-dollar necklace vanishes, a body turns up floating in the Mediterranean, and suddenly being invisible isn’t an option anymore.
It’s glitzy, it’s twisty, it’s the perfect Riviera thriller for anyone who loves a little glamour with their crime. I devoured it in a weekend!
A film I watched
Speaking of Cannes — Portrait of a Lady on Fire, which competed for the Palme d’Or in 2019 and won Best Screenplay there. I’m late to it, like I am to most things, but I watched it on a weekday afternoon when I should have been working, and I do not regret it.
It’s a slow film, set on an isolated stretch of the Brittany coast in the late 18th century. A young painter is commissioned to paint the wedding portrait of a reluctant aristocratic bride. The love story that builds between them over those few days wrecked me in the best way.
What I loved most is the stretch in the middle of the film, when the mother leaves the house and the three women left behind — the painter, the servant, the bride-to-be — exist together with the usual class lines gone. They cook together, play cards, read out loud. It’s a tiny pocket of a world where, for a moment, none of the rules apply.
Every frame looks like an oil painting. I keep thinking about it days later, which is usually how I know a movie got me.
A French recipe to try at home
Galettes have been my whole personality this month. If you’ve never had one, it’s essentially a savory buckwheat crepe folded around whatever fillings you love — earthy, nutty, a little crispy at the edges, and somehow both rustic and elegant at the same time.
They’re a specialty of Brittany (yes, the same Brittany from Portrait of a Lady on Fire, I promise I’m not doing this on purpose), and once you make one at home you’ll understand why the French keep buckwheat flour in the pantry like it’s a staple.
My go-to combo right now is egg, mushroom, and gruyère. It feels indulgent without being heavy, which makes it perfect for a slow lunch on the balcony or a low-effort dinner with a glass of cider on the side (the traditional pairing, by the way).
Here’s how I make it:
Galette batter (makes about 4)
1 cup buckwheat flour
1 cup water
½ cup milk
1 egg
½ tsp salt
1 tbsp melted butter, plus more for the pan
Whisk everything together until smooth. Let it rest in the fridge for at least an hour, ideally overnight — it makes the texture so much better.
To fill each galette
A small handful of mushrooms, sliced and sautéed in butter with a pinch of salt
A generous handful of grated gruyère
1 egg
Melt a bit of butter in a wide non-stick pan over medium heat. Pour in a ladleful of batter and swirl to coat the pan thinly. Once the edges start to lift, scatter the cheese over the middle, add the mushrooms, and crack the egg right on top. Let it cook until the white is set but the yolk is still soft, then fold the four sides of the galette in toward the center, leaving the yolk peeking out like a little sun.
Slide it onto a plate, crack pepper over the top, and eat immediately.
A French pharmacy skincare product I tried
The Caudalie Vinosun Invisible Sunscreen Stick (affiliate link, if you want to support my work 💛), and I am 100% obsessed. French pharmacies are a rabbit hole I happily fall down whenever I have a spare half hour, and this one has earned a permanent spot in my purse.
A few reasons it’s won me over: it slips right into a handbag for easy reapplication throughout the day, it doesn’t leave my skin oily or shiny, and there’s zero white cast — completely sheer, no chalkiness, nothing. It also leaves my skin feeling unbelievably smooth, almost like a primer doubling as SPF. I use it on my face, my neck, and the tattoos on my upper arm to keep them from fading in the Riviera sun.
If you’re heading to France this summer, add it to your pharmacy run.
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A French Substacker to subscribe to
never not hungry by glicia carence 🧚🏻♀️ — and you’re going to be hearing a lot more about Glicia in the coming months, because she’s the strength and fitness coach I’ll be working with throughout my upcoming Becoming the Main Character in My Own Story series.
She’s based in Paris and her whole thing is breaking down lifting, fitness, and intentional eating for beginners in a way that actually makes sense. No jargon, no intimidation, — just clear and generous education from someone who knows her stuff. If you’re new to your fitness journey, curious about picking up heavier weights, or want to understand body recomposition without falling into the algorithm’s worst corners, her publication is a goldmine.
I also cannot recommend working with her one-on-one enough. More on that soon 😉
A corner of France I’d revisit
A bit of a cheat this month, because I spent most of May in California and didn’t get much actual French exploring in. But hear me out, because I did visit a place that channels the Mediterranean so completely it might as well count.
Hearst Castle, perched on a hill above the central coast, was built by newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst in the early 1900s as his personal hilltop estate. He spent decades collecting European art and architecture on his travels and shipping pieces back to install on the property — Roman columns, Italian ceilings, Spanish tilework, French tapestries. The result is this wild, opulent, deeply European compound looking out over the Pacific. The famous Neptune Pool, with its colonnades and statues and impossible blue water, could be lifted straight from a villa on the Côte d’Azur.
I grew up about an hour from here, have family and friends that work here, and have visited more times than I can count — but walking the grounds always feels like seeing it new.
A French outfit I’m recreating
Photo courtesy of Pinterest. I’ve got my eyes on these pieces to recreate it this month (affiliate links again 💙):
A French phrase that doesn’t translate
Flâner — to wander aimlessly through a city for the pure pleasure of it, with no destination and no agenda. English "stroll" doesn't quite get there. Flâner is almost a philosophy: wandering as a worthy way to spend an afternoon, no productivity required. The perfect summer activity, if you ask me.
P.S. I wrote a full piece about it below!
About the Author:
Hey there! I’m Olivia, the heart behind Petal + Hearth. I’m a full-time Substack writer, originally from California, now living in the south of France. Here, I write about life abroad, what I dub ✨main character energy ✨, and what it really takes to build a creative business you love. When I’m not writing, I’m coaching other writers on how to grow their own Substack publications. It’s the kind of life I once only dreamed about, and I’m so glad you’re here for it.
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I just visited Bretagne to visit my boyfriend’s family for the first time and fell in love (especially with galettes!) - adding Portrait of a Lady On Fire to my To Watch list!!
Oooh I love this series!