A letter for you - june 2025
monthly journaling through recommendations
Dear reader, stranger, or even friend, I hope this letter finds you well. If it doesn't it is also okay. I truly hope this letter can give you some joy, and that we can discuss about the things I did (or you did!) this month. I am starting this letter pretty early - i must say, it is still the month of may oops - but my letter for may was already sooo long, I couldn't say anything more.
cooking
for this month recommendations, I'll be including also some cooking recipes I tested and approved by my friends! The first one is the chouquettes, I made an awful lot of these last years between good batch - and some bad ones …
So for this you will need : - 100g of flour - 50g of butter - 100 mL of water - eggs (usually between 2 or 3) - sugar (but depends on how you like your desserts sugary or not - I usually put sugar without measuring it cause it’s by feeling lmao) - some pearl sugar 1. At first, you will put in a saucepan the water and butter on the heat. 2. Bring it to a boil. 3. Then, remove from heat and pour all the flour in one go. 4. Stir with a wooden spatula, making sure that lumps do not form. 5. Dry off the resulting dough on the heat, stirring with a wooden spatula, until the paste comes away from the sides of the saucepan and forms a ball. (This is necessary in order to remove the rest of "water" and to make sure that the chouquettes has a proper shape) 6. Then, leave to cool for 5 minutes. Add one egg and combine with an wooden spoon. Add the eggs until you have a dough that is not too liquid but enough that it doesn't stay on the wooden spatula. Basically, you should have a preparation that can be scooped up with you wooden spoon and it should be able to shake it without flowing too much. 7. Using two spoons, scoop up a mound of dough with one spoon roughly the size of an unshelled walnut, and scrape it off with the other spoon onto the baking sheet. You can also use a pastry bag fitted with a plain 1/2-inch tip and pipe them. 8. Press the pearl sugar over the top and sides of each mound. 9. Bake the cream puffs until puffed and well-browned, about 25 to 30 minutes. If they get too dark midway through baking, lower the heat of the oven to 375ºF (190ºC) and continue baking. I wanted to put the recipe for the cake salé - which translated to "salted" cake. Basically a cake but not a dessert cake, more like a cake that you can eat for dinner. But it will be for next month cause i'm already near the email length limit. If you are interested, I can start putting recipes with images and all!
movies
La venue de l’avenir, 2025
Is every month gonna be about french movies? Haha. Might be, might be not. When I watched Ma mère, Dieu et Sylvie Vartan last month, they played the trailer of La venue de l'avenir and I wanted to watch it sooo badly.
(the english name is Colours of time, if you want to watch it) I wanted to watch it so badly because the synopsis reminded me of Midnight in Paris. I loved that movie when I was a little girl, so I was really looking forward it! Synopsis: In 2024, a family inherits an abandoned house and is plunged back to 1895 when four of them, Seb, Abdel, Céline and Guy, discover the existence of Adèle, their ancestor who left her native Normandy for Paris. We follow their adventures back and forth between the present time and the past times, discovering Adèle's life secrets. Review: I loved the colors, the people and most of all, Claire Pommet that sings in the movie (love that singer). I find it a bit confusing at first - as the flashbacks goes between the present and the past especially when the flashbacks were really short - it felt a bit rushed. But as the time past, I feel like they really found their own proper voice and rhythm. It was also pretty funny haha- We laughed a lot all together. I don't think it will be a movie i'll remember even years after I seen it (like Midnight in Paris) but, it is still a very enjoyable movie. I think I had a lot of expectations because of the memories I had from watching Midnight in Paris, even though it's been like years and maybe that movie isn't that good either. But overall, this movie is so fun to watch - even if the script is a bit predicable - and you can have a very good time watching it!
The Grand Budapest Hotel, 2014
Do you remember when I said I wanted to watch <The Grand Budapest Hotel> the most after seeing the exhibition about Wes Anderson? Well… I can most definitely say that I did ! Twice. In France, sometimes theaters will play again old movies so I had the chance to see it in the big screens. And omg - it was so good ? It’s like genius writing and I want to describe the storytelling as "Russian dolls" - it just goes on and on! Most of the time I have a hard time with the pace of the story but they found the perfect way between too long and too fast. The colors are just- no words for describe it. It was perfect so good. I think this is now one of my favorite movies ever.
music
I want to recommend listening to Pomme if you never have ! She has the prettiest most mezmerising voice ever.
Also ! I’m a big fan of DJO, you might know him for The End of Beginning which had a big success last summer and I had the chance to see him in real life sooo I was so excited about it !! Here are some pictures from the concert!
(And also I have like the biggest crush on Joe Keery so seeing him live was something lmao - I had the biggest fangirling moment afterwards)
(I know, the End of Beginning is a classic)
(one of my favourites)
(I loveeeed listening to this one live)
Oh and my playlist nowadays to dance in the streets:
memories
03.06.2025
So- we did try to make some croissants - which was some catastrophic experience … I don’t even know why we wanted to make some but I really wanted to try !
It might be the videos we see on the internet, because it looks so satisfying. Nevertheless, we all know making croissants isn’t so simple. It is the contrary actually. Very hard to make and also, takes a loooong loooong time.
We had a good laugh when we found out that we should have put the preparation in the fridge and not the freezer hahaha. So, it wasn’t a great success. It was already 8 P.M. when we decided to go in our respectives homes and finish there. One of my friend, put them in the oven as soon as she arrived home, but as she would describe them « it was bricks and not croissants ».
In conclusion, it was definitely cwaksons and not croissants. 
For me, it wasn’t working very well when I tried to continue our preparation. So, I made the decision with my mom to make a tomato pie, and use the croissants preparations as the base. It was good ! Very tasty ! I think it would have been a bit hard if I tried to make croissants out of it but it was cool nonetheless.
Oh and at the same time trying to make croissants, we did make a very good batch of chouquettes !
15.06.2025
Fun day with friends - I had some exams coming so it was a good way to think about something else. We went to a parc, the <Jardin des Plantes> in order to play some board games. We had some cherries, croissants, pains au chocolat to eat ! Like a little picnic! 
We played a little bit of a game named Citadelle but most of us had some things to do in the afternoon so we had to end the game short. Two funny things out of that day : - I saw an old tree, plante in 1785 and I said out loud : OMG HE WENT THROUGH THE FRENCH REVOLUTION !!!! - I saw a « lion's fountain », and my dumb ass said, once again : ASLAAAAAAAN Anyways, fun day !
21.06.2025 This is the famous Fête de la Musique in France! So, this is the day of music (if we translate it in English) and there is indeed, music everywhere. From street to little bands in parcs or in museums, it is so cool just to wander around in the streets. It was very fun - but there was sooo many people ! I think I’ve never seen that much people for la fête de la Musique. There was so DJ sets that were very good ( a remix of Wii music) and some from my previous playlist « change the mood: let’s dance ». Oh and the most funniest thing happened that day! I had another friend - the same one I gave the whale for his birthday last month - that invited me to come with him and his friends. I said to him that I already had plans but I guess the destiny had other plans for us. Because out of nowhere, we were walking and - "(redacted)???" "Lily ???" That was a funny interaction. We ended up spending the rest of the night together, even improvising a little dance choreography made by me. It was so funny because two people that saw us doing the choreography asked us if they could join! So we did like a little smol flash mob hahah. I danced like a crazy person that day - especially when there was some music from my let's dance playlist!! Great day, I love the "Fête de la musique".
22.06.2025
Ate some bingsu with a great friend of mine (if you seeing this love you). Bingsu, is like a korean ice cream. It has shaved ice with some fruits or most of the time 팥, which is red beans.
We already ate the mango bingsu so we decided to try the red beans bingsu (the reason why we came back). But we found that it was a bit too sweet for us.
The café is so pretty and sometimes they even have some exhibitions at the second floor! So try it if you're in Paris and looking for a fresh dessert in the summer !!
Just be aware that there is a lot of people in week-ends. The first time we went a Tuesday and there was almost no one while this time it was fully booked.
Adress. Paris Dabang
6 Rue de la Folie Méricourt, 75011 Paris25.06.2025
Between babysitting an 8 month old and making a "cake salé" - this day was something. I don't know for you guys (is it hot while you reading this in your respectives homes? Because I feel like dying here), but here in Paris we are all dying from the summer heat.
Nonetheless, we decided to make some cake with basilic, dried tomatoes, feta and parmesan. It was incredible! So goood - like in my memories.
I liked it so much that as soon as I got home, I made another one for my family lmao. They all loved it. I'll make sure to include the recipe for next month. But I think it's already time for us to say our goodbyes for this month.
my own substack
If you are interested with some of my others works: missing you the urge for love
This month had a LOT of memories because it is the holidayyyyyssss!! (I will work next month, so probably will have less memories, but I hope I can write a lot for july too!) I hoped you liked it anyway !! Until next month, I hope you the best. with lots of love, Lily
je sais pas pour les croissants, un jour t'es arrivée sur le groupe et t'as dit "j'ai trop envie de faire des croissants", et on a juste répondu "OMG OUIIIIII !!!!!!!"
Lily!!! I’ve been waiting to read this letter so long! What a fun month! I finally got the update on the croissants, ahahaha, well that will make for fun memories! I’d love to see more recipes. From what I see, you’re very good at cooking. EXCUSE ME, DJO?!?!? Joe Keery, THE Joe Keery? That must have been awesome. I should really lisent to him more uh? Well, I will because of your letter! Btw, I love the Grand Budapest Hotel. My fave movie by Wes Anderson though must be “the French Dispatch”. Also, from this letter, and the previous one, it sounds like your life is a movie! Ahaha Seriously though, I love how you celebrate these moments with your friends and family!! Je suis très contente de cette lettre, j’attendrai avec patience la prochaine!!