10 D THE NEW YORK TIMES, SUNDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2020REMOTE LEARNING,empty football stadiums, no trick
or treating: Fall may look and feel very different this
year, but at least there are still plenty of pumpkins to
be picked and pumpkin treats to eat.
For carving and pumpkinseed roasting, standard
jack-o’-lantern, or field, pumpkins will do just fine,
but for eating, look for small, round “sugar pump-
kins” or “pie pumpkins.” To roast, cut in half, remove
and reserve the seeds. Brush both sides of the pump-
kin with olive oil. Place flesh-side down on a sheet
pan lined with parchment and roast at 425 degrees
until you can easily pierce the skin with a fork, about
30 to 40 minutes. Let cool, scoop the flesh out of the
skin and purée in a food processor until smooth,
adding a little water if necessary to loosen. There you
have it: pumpkin purée that will work in all manner
of baked goods, from pumpkin pie to pumpkin
blondies.
Use two cups of the purée to make Samantha
Seneviratne’s pumpkin bread, an unfussy classic that
lends itself to improvisation. Toss in a handful of
chocolate chips, dried cranberries or chopped pecans
to jazz it up. Or leave it plain and slather slices with
butter. (If you don’t have fresh pumpkin, make it with
one 15-ounce can of pumpkin, but not pumpkin-pie
filling.)
By all means, don’t let the seeds go to waste. Once
you remove all of the stringy gunk, roast the seeds
with a little olive oil, salt and spices: Add za’atar, or
cinnamon and cayenne in Step 3 with the oil and salt.
Pumpkin seeds are the ideal autumnal snack,
whether you’re on a hay ride or on your couch wait-
ing for election results to roll in.
PUMPKIN BREAD
BY SAMANTHA SENEVIRATNE
YIELD: 1 LOAF (ABOUT 10 SERVINGS)
TIME: 1 ½ HOURS
½cup/120 milliliters vegetable oil, plus more for
greasing the pan
2 ¼cups/285 grams all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
¾teaspoon kosher salt
½teaspoon baking soda
About 2 cups pumpkin purée or 1 (15-ounce)
can
1 cup/200 grams granulated sugar
¾cup/165 grams packed light or dark
brown sugar
2 large eggs
¼cup/60 milliliters full-fat sour cream or plain
yogurt
1 ½teaspoons pure vanilla extract1.Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Oil an 8 ½- or 9-inch
loaf pan; line with parchment, leaving a 2-inch overhang
on two sides.
2.In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking
powder, cinnamon, salt and baking soda. In a large bowl,
whisk together the vegetable oil, pumpkin purée, granu-
lated sugar, brown sugar, eggs, sour cream and vanilla.
Fold the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until fully
combined. Transfer the batter to the prepared pan and
smooth into an even layer.
3.Bake until the loaf is puffed and set, and a skewer
inserted into the center comes out with moist crumbs
attached, 60 to 75 minutes. Transfer the bread, in the
pan, to a rack to cool for 20 minutes. Use a paring knife to
cut the two exposed sides of bread away from the pan,
then use the parchment to transfer the cake to the rack.
Let cool completely.
ROASTED PUMPKIN SEEDS
BY ALI SLAGLE
YIELD: 1 CUP
TIME: 40 MINUTES
1 cup fresh pumpkin seeds
1 tablespoon olive oil
Kosher salt1.To clean the pumpkin seeds of pumpkin slime and flesh,
put the seeds in a large bowl filled with cold water. The
seeds will float to the top. Skim them out with your hands,
pulling away any flesh that’s stuck on the seeds. Shake the
seeds in your hand to get of any excess water, then trans-
fer to a baking sheet.
2.Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Pat the seeds down with
a paper towel, then toast them until they are dry and
tacky, about 5 minutes.
3.Pull baking sheet out of the oven. Drizzle the seeds with
the olive oil and sprinkle with 1 teaspoon salt. Toss to
coat, then spread into an even layer. Return seeds to
oven, and bake, stirring occasionally, until light golden
brown, 25 to 30 minutes.
4.Let cool. Seeds will keep in an airtight container at
room temperature for 1 week.
Take Delight
In Pumpkins
You can roast, purée and bake
with them. (Don’t forget: seeds.)
BY MARGAUX LASKEY
CHRISTOPHER TESTANI FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES.
FOOD STYLIST: EUGENE JHO.“IF SOMEONE ASKEDyou before,
‘Do you want to sign up for a
world in which your co-workers
see inside of your house all the
time?,’ the answer would probably
be ‘No,’ ” said Kelly Williams
Brown, an etiquette expert.
And yet, look around: In a
recent poll, one in four American
workers said he or she had been
working from home entirely.
The personal and professional
may be blurred, but in many ways,
the rules of conduct are the same.
It is still not OK to expose your
genitalia to your co-workers, the
way Jeffrey Toobin, a writer for
The New Yorker, did in a recent
Zoom call. Nor should you look at
pornography on your work com-
puter — unless that is literally
your job.
With offices situated steps from
living rooms and kitchens, “it’s
easy to multitask, to go between
work and home,” said Samantha
Ettari, the privacy counsel at
Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel,
a law firm with headquarters in
New York. “It’s tempting to do
everything on your work laptop.”
But, she said, it’s important to
“protect your private space.”How can you make sure private
things don’t become public?
Many people are now living with
grown-up versions of the “I came
to school naked” nightmare: Texts
to your girlfriend showing in your
work chats. The nude self-portrait
popping up in a video chat on the
wall behind you. Your collection of
cannabis cookbooks appearing in
the background of a video call
with your boss.
“When you do these work video
Zooms, you’re letting people into
your home, but you’re still in a
work environment,” Ms. Ettari
said. Legally, that means you are
still protected from discriminatory
actions. For example, if you have a
disability that your employer did
not know about, the company
cannot retaliate against you based
on that information.
Of course, much of what people
do not want others to see has
nothing to do with legality. Their
concerns are more about the
impressions they make.
“First of all, turn off your cam-
era when you don’t need it,” said
Lorrie Cranor, the director of the
CyLab Security and PrivacyInstitute at Carnegie Mellon Uni-
versity. Or, “get a tiny webcam
cover,” said Ms. Brown, the author
of “Gracious: A Practical Primer
on Charm, Tact and Unsinkable
Strength.” “You don’t have to
worry about turning your video
off. You will truly know that no-
body can see you. That’s a lot of
security for $8.” Dr. Cranor said a
Post-it or a piece of opaque tape
works, too.
When your camera is on, Dr.
Cranor said, “make sure your
computer is facing the wall.” She
added, “Other than your cat drop-
ping in, it should be hard for any-
one to get into the frame.”
Finally, Dr. Cranor said, “never
share your whole screen, just
share the particular application,”
such as Microsoft PowerPoint.You had a minor disaster. How
do you handle it gracefully?
“Make a very quick joke and move
right on,” Ms. Brown said. “Say:
‘That was a lot more than I in-
tended to share with you today.
I’m sorry about that.’ The less you
react to it the less others will react
to it.” She noted that, in most
cases, people are sympathetic.
“If you have a bra in the back-
ground, presumably your co-
workers know you wear bras or
they could assume you do,” she
said.
Lizzie Post, the great-great-
granddaughter of Emily Post and
host of the podcast “Awesome
Etiquette,” recommended being
sincere when apologizing, and
letting people know it will not
happen again.
How to judge if something you
did or experienced is a serious
offense? If it would not fly in your
office, it is a no-go in a profes-
sional video meeting or confer-
ence call, or on your company-
issued laptop or phone.
Remember, sexual harassment
in the workplace does not need to
occur inside the office. If you
experience sexual harassment,
including in the digital space, you
have options, such as making a
criminal complaint, alerting your
employer or going to a govern-
ment agency.What if it is a colleague who is
being embarrassing?
“It depends on the offense,” Ms.
Post said. “If background noise is
getting in the way, like the dog is
barking, the kids are screeching,
the construction is loud, those arethings you can say, ‘Jim, do you
mind muting?’ ” But, “if Jim does-
n’t realize in any capacity that he’s
doing embarrassing things, I
would try to call or text Jim.”
Ms. Post pointed out that in
some cases, your colleague’s
actions might be beyond a faux
pas. “Like the Jeffrey Toobin
incident,” she said. “It’s so egre-
gious, it has to be dealt with then
and there. Say: ‘Your camera is
on, and it shouldn’t be right now.
Shut it off and we will discuss it
later.’ Or, ‘We will end the call and
discuss it now.’ ”Are companies monitoring what
employees do on computers,
and how much do they know?
Not all employers track what you
do on devices they issue. Some
will block entire websites or regu-
late how, where and when you can
use the device. Or, “they could be
monitoring you by having soft-
ware on your computer that’s
logging your keystrokes or taking
a screenshot of what you’re do-
ing,” Dr. Cranor said.
In some cases, all of your work
computer’s web requests go
through the employer’s proxy
system, so it can see what web-
sites you visited.
Some companies will track
where your devices are.
When it comes to newer tech-
nologies, like Slack or WhatsApp,
Ms. Ettari said that your company
might not be able to monitor you
in real time, depending on privacy
settings or if the apps are loaded
onto personal devices.
But that does not guarantee
that your communications will
remain private. For example, if
you send work-related texts on
your own phone and are later
pulled into a lawsuit related to
that work, your records could be
required as evidence in court.How do you know if you’re
being monitored?
“If your employer is monitoring
which websites you’re going to,
every now and then, when you go
to a website, there’s a notice that
says you’re not allowed to go
there,” Dr. Cranor said. Some
employers have an alert set up for
each time you log in that will tell
you that you’re being watched.
To find out whether your com-
pany keeps track of your digital
activities, ask the I.T. departmentor human resources, or check
your employee handbook.
But does your employer have to
tell you that it is monitoring you?
Not always.
When it comes to most private
enterprises, the requirements
depend on the state. Search for
“electronic monitoring notice law”
and your state’s name to see
where your state stands.You opened an inappropriate
website on your work computer.
What do you do?
Close it!
“If you were there for five sec-
onds and closed it and they are not
monitoring closely, it won’t trigger
any issues probably,” Dr. Cranor
said. Consider telling someone
what happened. “If you click a link
that’s legitimate and it takes you
somewhere that’s not legitimate,
you should think about reporting
it to your tech people,” Ms. Ettari
said. “You could have been the
victim of a phishing scam that
introduced malware into your
company system.”Explain ‘incognito mode.’
Dr. Cranor said there is a lot of
confusion around “incognito
mode.”
“The main thing it gets you is
that it doesn’t store the list of
websites you’ve visited on your
computer,” she said. Incognito
mode does not provide a shield of
anonymity. “If your employer is
tracking you, they’ll still be able to
track you.”What should you definitely not
do on your work devices?
All the experts agreed: When
you’re working, treat your at-
home office the way you would
your regular office.
Dena Haritos Tsamitis, the
director of the Information Net-
working Institute at Carnegie
Mellon University, suggested
taking broad steps to separate the
personal and professional parts of
your life, including restricting
your work email to work-related
communication and using your
personal email for everything
else.
But generally, you can be sure
that some things are no-nos, such
as anything that is illegal.
Do not spam people, do not
harass anyone, do not download
movies and shows illegally, and
definitely, “don’t look at pornogra-
phy,” Dr. Cranor said.KA YOUNG LEEThe line between professional and personal feels blurred, but
inappropriate behavior can still get you fired.
BY VALERIYA SAFRONOVARemember,
Working at Home
Still Has Rules
.