Pack your lunches, Ladies !

Madeleine Shaw

Madeleine Shaw is a qualified Nutritional Health Coach from the Institute of Integrative Nutrition. On her blog she shares wonderful recipes that will help you « get the glow », as she promises. She is a great supporter of lunch-packing, and she proposes it to all the ladies that want to stay in shape, despite their demanding work schedule.

Her sweet potato and carrot soup is unbelievably simple to make, coming from someone who considers boiling an egg time consuming. Also, it’s as tasty and colorful as it sounds, and will brighten up your dull lunchtime at the office. Make it the night before, pack it in a thermos or a glass-jar and you’re good to go !

A purpose of having lunch at the office is to boost yourself up with energy. The ingredients of this specific soup serve this purpose to the highest point, according to the blogger. ‘Fresh chicken stock is rich in amino acids, carrots are loaded with vitamin A and sweet potato - lots of beta carotene,’ she explains. 

A creative chef, blogger, writer, presenter and self-professed yoga enthusiast, Madeleine is committed to helping her clients enliven the hottest, healthiest, happiest versions of themselves. As a young girl, she kept a low/no fat, very boring and highly restricted diet; which resulted in very serious health issues.  This triggered her to finally seek out a healthier way of life. Her journey led her to work in an organic café in Sydney, a life-changing experience that gave her the primary idea to start blogging. She now resides in London, she shares magnificent recipes through her blog but you can consult her privately.

Her sweet potato and carrot soup is unbelievably simple to make

‘For me a packed lunch is essential whenever I leave my home and especially if I'm traveling. I tend to grab leftovers from my dinner or make a salad in a jar, whisk up and bottle up a smoothie or take a carton of coconut water, a piece of fruit and grab a snack like a raw chocolate bar for a treat," seems to agree Amelia from Freer Nutrition. At private Chelsea gym SP&Co, Freer Nutrition works with all clients to support their health and well-being goals.

Another purpose of packing your lunch is to save calories. Madeleine consider wiser for the working-ladies to have a rich in calories lunch, rather than a dinner. Madeleine explained to us that our digestive fire is lower in the evening, so it’s better to load it when our belly is fiery and ready to digest. In her opinion, lunch should be a mix of protein (eggs, fish, meat or quinoa) cooked starchy (sweet potato, pumpkin or cauliflower) and raw green veggies.

Additionally, you save a bunch of money, by packing your lunch, although healthy food tends to be overpriced nowadays. Madeleine usually buys her groceries from local farmers markets. ‘They are amazing’, she says, ‘I also love Cycle Veg and Avocado’. 

She shared with us her other favorite lunch idea recipe, the so called ‘Lunchbox Stack: Quinoa, Avocado, Carrot and Chia Seeds’. The recipe can be found on her page, take a look to get inspired and get the glow!

How to get office-ready in seconds feat. Equipment

One in two women spend 15 minutes the night before work, working out what to wear. Equipment seems to have the solution to your time-consuming dilemmas! Office-wear can be tricky to separate from casual wear but needs to be clearly distinct. “Absolutely!” Gabriella emphatically agrees with us. Gabriella Krasnitsky is a Real Estate Salesperson but also well-known fashion blogger, from New York. Appearance, according to her, plays a big role in Real Estate. It is a rule that clients tend to trust more easily people that make a good and neat first impression, in any client facing business.

“I don't think you need to necessarily be dressed in a suit at work but you have to look like you take care of yourself, be presentable. This way you look more confident and you are nicer to be around”, she advises.

Gabriella is hiding behind our latest favorite/must-read blog “Brokers and Bags”. The name of her blog says it all. She started blogging in order to have a creative outlet. She has worked in banking for a few years and before that attended a Business School. Gabriella explains that she chose blogging because it was a way to incorporate her new career and something creative. And she does it very well, I may say! On her page, you’ll find great advice on office wear and not only. 

She has been a fan of Equipment for a few years now, and currently obsessed with their new crew neck cashmere sweaters with prints. As she revealed, her snakeskin one is the one to get the most compliments. She also adores their classic silk blouse and of course has a couple of these “babies”, as she calls them. Although her favourite is the one that has the shoulders cut out, it immediately adds a badass element to a conservative look.

Another huge fan of Equipment is Rebecca Atrill, the style-advisor Manager at Harvey Nichols. “I love equipment,” she admits. She had an interview recently where she was just wearing all Equipment. It’s her go-to brand, as she confessed to us.

We met Rebecca on the third floor of Harvey Nichols while she was supervising the stylists helping out a lady to pick up a dress for a Christmas party, a fancy one. Her team usually has to deal with customers that have gone through a life-changing experience, it might be a first child, it might be a new job, that they had just been promoted, or that they moved to a different city. They don’t only go to the department store but also contact them through email or phone. The service is complimentary and I would give it a try if I were you! The team is constituted by other experts other than Rebecca herself who gives different styling advices on everything you ask for.  

“Whenever I don’t know what to wear I just go with skinny jeans and an Equipment shirt and it’s done!” she says snapping her fingers as she finishes her sentence. Equipment adds a “parisy”, chic kind of identity to your style. It’s everything you can ever imagine in one shirt, you can have the oversize, you can have the slim fit shirt, and they even do the dresses now, the blazers for the summer, and amazing pajamas as well! (The most comfortable pajamas you can ever wear, speaking from personal experience). Their clothes are 100% suitable for office wear, Rebecca advices.

Outfit idea by Gabriella, from brokersandbags.com

“Living in NYC, I think everyone is interested in Real Estate”, Gabriella observes. She prefers sales because she gets to interact with people everyday, which is exactly why she truly loves her job. She gets to meet all different types of people everyday. At the same time, she has always been into fashion. Despite the fact that she was never someone who cared about Fashion Week or watched Project Runway, but was always a “fashionista”, as she calls herself. She would also help her friends pick out new clothes and work out outfits.

Creating outfits is what she loves doing most, so she decided to do it for you this time! Outfit idea 1: 1. Signature Green silk blouse from Equipment, tucked into a pencil long beige skirt (could be leather or suede for more fun) and beige pointy toe pumps. Who would love that look? Outfit idea 2/A more formal version: Equipment silk blouse tucked into Equipment silk pants with a structured blazer and a pair of black pumps. Extra outfit idea 3/for a more casual day: regular business slacks with the Equipment white silk blouse and an their V neck cashmere sweater in any neutral color, including hunter green, over it. If you get hot, wrap it around your shoulders and tie in front or wrap around your waste and tie. You can wear flats or pumps with this outfit, depending on how lazy you are to walk on heels on your day off.

Gabriella starts her day with a motto that drives her career at the same time that it inspires her style: "If you're going to do it, don't do it "just to do it", do it right and do it the best". Keep that in mind tomorrow morning ladies, as you are working out your outfit for the day. It will sure save you some time!

How to Own a Pet in London?

Making fun of my inability to understand the English humor, my friend said he would take me to the only kind of comedy club I would enjoy one of these days. My detestation towards comedy nights was not secret, however I was intrigued to find out what he meant.

Despite my strong resistance, he decided to drag me to Camden Comedy Club, the 21^st of January. The event was free, you just had to turn up there at 7:45 pm “at least I wouldn’t spend my money on this comedy thingy”, I thought. The show started half an hour after this, and made me explain his overall persistence to take me there.

Natural Born Storytellers were about to narrate all about their favorite pet-related stories. My friend knew I’ve been dying to adopt a dog, since I moved to London. Although my often escapes to other countries along with my fear that a puppy would ruin the fluffy beige carpet that covers more than half of my flat, made it impossible. How easy is it though to own a pet, while living in London?

As you’ve probably realized by now, I’m not an expert on comedy, but Storyteller Bruce Cochrane with his story about Arrow, his redhead Hungarian Vizsla, was the best out of all of them, in my opinion. The two besties met in Cyprus, while Bruce was serving in the military and were inseparable since then. Afterwards, they moved together to Northern Ireland, where Arrow would never fail to make a fool of his boss by annoying the neighbors all the time. He continued by making some jokes about his home place, Tottenham, that I found a bit unsuccessful to be honest, but the puppy story was touching enough to make me forget about it.

The duo then moved to England where Arrow stole once a sandwich from a random lady; he sounds to me like a great supporter of the « sharing is caring » philosophy. The redhead, one-foot tall hyperactive puppy was Bruce’s constant companion for years, he never asked for more than his love and of course his full attention.

Another attention-seeker responds to the name Fuerte Ventura. And I’m not talking about the exotic Canary Island, but about the insta-famous black Shepherd Belgian/ Australian kelpie, with the 300 followers !

Fuerte Ventura, the insta-famous black Shepherd Belgian/ Australian kelpie with the 300 followers

After some research, I realized that many landlords don’t allow pets; so finding an apartment can often be a challenge. Landlords that allow pets can often ask for a higher rent. Fuerte’s owner, 24 year old, masters student Daphne, struggled a lot before she found the most appropriate place for the two of them. After 6 months without any results in her flat-search, she decided to put an ad on the internet stating that she would offer to give a double deposit since she owns a pet, just to reassure the owners that any damage to the flat will be fully covered. Therefore, although she rented the flat at the price advertised, her landlord gladly accepted the double deposit.

“Start to look as soon as possible you decide you want to move in with your pet”, she advised. Agencies and private landlords tend to be more understanding when having face-to-face contact, try to organize a meeting with the three of you, so that those puppy eyes mesmerize your prospective landlord.

Although having a pet is indeed a big commitment, not everyone finds it that restricting. “After adopting my dog, I have a stricter schedule in which I have to incorporate and balance both my work and my dog’s needs (walks, play-time etc)”. Daphne believes that a pet can actually be helpful with one’s schedule.

In case you’re a cat person though, Catnips has the solution for you, offering a range of services from cat sitting to cat behavior-consultation and grooming for your kitten.

“My passion for cats and my desire to change my career path led me to the idea of setting up a business whereby I can help other cat owners. There was definitely a need for mobile cat grooming in my area as well as an exclusive cat sitting service”, explains Anita, the cat-lover and owner of Catnips.

People working all day and wishing to go out at nights too, should seriously reconsider getting a pet since the poor animal does not deserve to be left alone all day. As long as I don’t own one yet, I can babysit anytime though!

By Yorva Tsiakara

Not only Mean Girls go to girls' schools

Last time I admitted to somebody I attended an all-girls Catholic French School, he had a very interesting reaction, saying: “oh! Now I see why you’re the only person I know who can eat a Dorito and keep his fingers clean at all times”. To his surprise, none member of the staff of my school ever taught me how to devour any kind of junk food. However, I was advised to always maintain a polished high ponytail, I was lectured on my French accent and I was finally brainwashed to love playing the piano. 

Scene from Mean Girls, the American teen comedy came out in 2004 and stigmatized all mean girls around the world. 

Psychologists of the universities of Glasgow looked at the educational achievement levels of 1.5 million teenagers from around the world, using the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) data. The findings, which are published in the journal Intelligence last week, show that girls perform better than boys in mathematics, reading and science literacy in 70 per cent of every country. The United Kingdom and United States had no significant difference in educational achievement between the two sexes, according to the study. Although, it worths noticing that kids with classmates of the same sex seemed to absorb the knowledge in a more efficient way.

After 15 years of experience in a single-sex school, I believe I have formed a complete opinion on the matter; which, as you can imagine, varied throughout the years.

“Who needs boys?” wonders 8 year old Lydia, student at Ralios Girls’ School in Athens, Greece.  And my younger self would totally agree with her, at this time, when you only want to hang out with people of the same interests and stay away from hyperactive boyish behaviors.

Things change completely as you grow up. You start finding unnatural the fact that you are not able to hang out with people of the contrary sex. You find even weirder that your parents decided to exclude you from being in a mixed classroom and sometimes you might get upset with them.

Regardless your point of view, your mommy knew better when she decided to take you to a fancy girls school with a big yard where you can practice lacrosse and take Public Speaking as an extracurricular activity. To my knowledge, a girls’ school is much more than that.

St James' Independent Schools in London are three private schools for children aged from 4 to 18. The Junior and Senior Girls' Schools are in Hammersmith and Fulham but the Senior Boys' School is in Ashford, Surrey. The Senior Girls’ School has a reputation of years of teaching preppy girls how to study, behave and make good connections with fellow classy girls of a wealthy family background. 

“Parents trust us to help with their children’s impressive progress towards adulthood; that’s the most fulfilling thing about directing a girls’ school”, says Sarah Labram.  Sarah wasn’t easy to be found. After three weeks of unanswered phone calls and late replies in my continuous emails, we managed to organize an interview, at the senior girls school in Hammersmith. By first looking at her in her floral shirt and her Manolo Blahnik kitten heels, I couldn’t help but thinking she must have attended the school herself. However, what she had to say about the school’s objectives made me reexamine the image I had about her as a headmistress of the Senior Girls School.

St James Schools were founded in 1975, since then they have accepted a lot of criticism by other experts of the education department. “This never stopped us from developing a distinctive philosophical approach to education, which our girls represent inside and outside of the school. Our strong foundation was never questioned and never became the reason of a decrease in our enrolments”, she claims.

The teachers in St James tend to use gender-specified teaching techniques that help them not only achieve a high academic potential but also to look after the girls’ emotional well-being.

I had the chance to take a walk among the students who happened to have a break, while I was leaving the premises, after our meeting with Sarah. I was really taken aback by how warm was the environment at the corridors.

The netball team had just finished practice and was cheering for the blue team’s victory. I felt nothing but a sense of unity and interdependence, while looking at the girls complimenting each other for their good game. A scene from the Mean Girls was exactly what I was expecting to come across in such type of school, which was far from the reality.

By Yorva Tsiakara