What does success look like?

Because we all have that plastic bag full of plastic bags

Pull Up A Chair is a weekly newsletter containing all the things I’d like to be chatting about if we could hang out together in real life. If you’d like to access paid content, but can’t afford to, do ping me an email and I’ll happily give you free access.

• 🥄 Whipped Feta Dip. Sainsbury’s (a big UK supermarket, for those of you not on these islands) has launched its summer range, and one of the items is a gorgeous Feta-mayonnaise dip with mint. I have had it as a dip - carrot sticks were a delicious way to scoop it up - but I’ve also used it in some of this week’s sandwiches; it worked particularly well with leftover fajita chicken and peppers. Now I want to use this Serious Eats recipe to make a version with harissa, or with sundried tomatoes, or spinach - the possibilities are endless.  

• 📚 If Only You by Chloe Liese. The newest book in Chloe Liese’s Bergman Brothers series came out in April, and as I had pre-ordered it, it automatically appeared on my Kindle ready for a couple of long train journeys. As ever, absolutely delightful. Like me, Liese is neurodivergent, and her books are full of representation of people with mental or physical health conditions or neurodivergent identities - who all get to live their love stories. When I’m feeling glum about finding ‘my person’, reading Chloe Liese’s books gives me confident that people like me get to have happy endings too. They’re not ‘after-school specials’, though - her books are full of spice and humour. This one starts with the ‘best friend’s little sister’ and ‘fake dating’ tropes - and you don’t need to have read the previous five books in the series for it to make sense. If you want to go back to the start, though, the first book, Only When It’s Us, is completely delightful. (Bookshop.org | Amazon - affiliate links) 

• 🎧 Sentimental Garbage podcast. This podcast, featuring Caroline O’Donoghue and her friends and guests talking about the kind of cultural artefacts that get dismissed as ‘shamelessly commercial’ (to quote the theme tune), is generally fantastic - but what I especially want to recommend is the most recent episode on Midnights with guest Jen Cownie; it’s a fantastic textual analysis of Taylor Swift’s newest album which includes a mind-blowing insight about Sweet Nothing and a skewering of what [some!] straight men do when you try and help them with anything. Go and listen to this, and then do a straight-through listen of the album. (Spotify | Apple) 

Like everyone else on the Internet over the last few years, I’ve been thinking about ambition, and work, and goals. Because Emma Gannon’s new book, The Success Myth, is out now, the word ‘success’ has been rolling around my mind too.