Recipes for Health: Baked Acorn Squash With Wild Rice — Recipes for Health

Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times

The filling here is a Greco-Italian fusion, with a little American (wild rice) thrown in. I’m usually not a fusion sort of cook, but I wanted something creamy like risotto to fill these squash. Look for small acorn squash so that each person can have one. They’ll be like miniature vegetarian (or vegan) turkeys.

6 small acorn squash

1 bunch kale or 1 10-ounce package stemmed and washed kale, stems picked out and discarded

1 cup cooked wild rice (1/3 cup uncooked)*

1 quart vegetable stock

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1/2 cup minced onion

Salt to taste

2/3 cup arborio rice

1 plump garlic clove, minced

1/2 cup dry white wine, like pinot grigio or sauvignon blanc

1/4 cup chopped fresh dill

1/4 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley Freshly ground pepper to taste

1/4 to 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese (1 to 2 ounces) (optional)

Cayenne or freshly grated nutmeg to taste (optional)

1. Heat the oven to 425 degrees. Line a baking sheet with foil and brush the foil with olive oil. Place the squash in the oven and bake 30 minutes. Each squash should be intact but beginning to give on the side it’s resting on, and soft enough to cut through. Remove from the oven and let sit for 15 minutes, until the squash has cooled slightly. Then, resting a squash on the slightly flattened side that it was sitting on in the oven, cut away the top third. You will be putting the top “cap” back on once the squash is filled, so cut it off in one neat slice. Scrape out the seeds and membranes from both pieces and set aside. Repeat for the remaining squash. Turn the oven heat down to 350 degrees. Oil a baking dish or sheet pan that can accommodate all of the squash.

2. Meanwhile, blanch the kale in a large pot of salted boiling water for 2 to 4 minutes, until just tender. Transfer to a bowl of cold water, drain and squeeze out excess water. Chop medium-fine and set aside. Cook the wild rice, following the directions below, and set aside.

3. Put the stock into a saucepan and bring it to a simmer over low heat, with a ladle nearby. Heat 1 tablespoon of the olive oil over medium heat in a wide, heavy nonstick saucepan or skillet. Add the onion and a generous pinch of salt, and cook gently until it is just tender, 3 to 5 minutes.

4. Add the arborio rice and garlic and stir until the grains separate and begin to crackle. Add the wine and stir until it has been absorbed. Begin adding the simmering stock, a couple of ladlefuls (about 1/2 cup) at a time. The stock should just cover the rice, and should be bubbling, not too slowly but not too quickly. Cook, stirring often, until it is just about absorbed. Add another ladleful or two of the stock and continue to cook in this fashion, adding more stock and stirring when the rice is almost dry. You do not have to stir constantly, but stir often. Continue to add stock and stir until the rice is almost tender, about 20 minutes. The rice should still be a little chewy. Add another ladleful of stock and stir in the kale, wild rice and herbs. Stir together until the stock is just about absorbed, about 5 minutes, and add another ladleful of stock. Remove from the heat. Add pepper, taste and adjust seasonings. Stir in the remaining olive oil and the Parmesan if using.

5. Season the surface of the acorn squash with salt, pepper and nutmeg or cayenne (if desired). Fill the hollowed-out squash with the risotto. Place the tops back on the squash and put them in the baking dish or on the sheet pan.

6. Bake 40 minutes, or until the squash is tender all the way through when pierced with a knife.

* To cook the wild rice, bring 2 cups of the stock or water to boil in a medium saucepan. Add salt to taste and the wild rice. When the water returns to the boil, reduce the heat, cover and simmer 40 to 45 minutes, until the rice is tender and has begun to splay. Drain and transfer the rice to a large bowl.

Yield: 6 to 8 generous servings

Advance preparation: The risotto can be made a day ahead, but you will want to heat it and add a little more stock to get the creaminess that will be lost overnight.

Nutritional information per serving (6 servings): 366 calories; 5 grams fat; 1 gram saturated fat; 1 gram polyunsaturated fat; 3 grams monounsaturated fat; 0 milligrams cholesterol; 75 grams carbohydrates; 9 grams dietary fiber; 53 milligrams sodium (does not include salt to taste); 9 grams protein

Nutritional information per serving (8 servings): 274 calories; 4 grams fat; 1 gram saturated fat; 1 gram polyunsaturated fat; 3 grams monounsaturated fat; 0 milligrams cholesterol; 56 grams carbohydrates; 7 grams dietary fiber; 40 milligrams sodium (does not include salt to taste); 6 grams protein

Martha Rose Shulman is the author of “The Very Best of Recipes for Health

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Recipes for Health: Baked Acorn Squash With Wild Rice — Recipes for Health

Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times

The filling here is a Greco-Italian fusion, with a little American (wild rice) thrown in. I’m usually not a fusion sort of cook, but I wanted something creamy like risotto to fill these squash. Look for small acorn squash so that each person can have one. They’ll be like miniature vegetarian (or vegan) turkeys.

6 small acorn squash

1 bunch kale or 1 10-ounce package stemmed and washed kale, stems picked out and discarded

1 cup cooked wild rice (1/3 cup uncooked)*

1 quart vegetable stock

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1/2 cup minced onion

Salt to taste

2/3 cup arborio rice

1 plump garlic clove, minced

1/2 cup dry white wine, like pinot grigio or sauvignon blanc

1/4 cup chopped fresh dill

1/4 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley Freshly ground pepper to taste

1/4 to 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese (1 to 2 ounces) (optional)

Cayenne or freshly grated nutmeg to taste (optional)

1. Heat the oven to 425 degrees. Line a baking sheet with foil and brush the foil with olive oil. Place the squash in the oven and bake 30 minutes. Each squash should be intact but beginning to give on the side it’s resting on, and soft enough to cut through. Remove from the oven and let sit for 15 minutes, until the squash has cooled slightly. Then, resting a squash on the slightly flattened side that it was sitting on in the oven, cut away the top third. You will be putting the top “cap” back on once the squash is filled, so cut it off in one neat slice. Scrape out the seeds and membranes from both pieces and set aside. Repeat for the remaining squash. Turn the oven heat down to 350 degrees. Oil a baking dish or sheet pan that can accommodate all of the squash.

2. Meanwhile, blanch the kale in a large pot of salted boiling water for 2 to 4 minutes, until just tender. Transfer to a bowl of cold water, drain and squeeze out excess water. Chop medium-fine and set aside. Cook the wild rice, following the directions below, and set aside.

3. Put the stock into a saucepan and bring it to a simmer over low heat, with a ladle nearby. Heat 1 tablespoon of the olive oil over medium heat in a wide, heavy nonstick saucepan or skillet. Add the onion and a generous pinch of salt, and cook gently until it is just tender, 3 to 5 minutes.

4. Add the arborio rice and garlic and stir until the grains separate and begin to crackle. Add the wine and stir until it has been absorbed. Begin adding the simmering stock, a couple of ladlefuls (about 1/2 cup) at a time. The stock should just cover the rice, and should be bubbling, not too slowly but not too quickly. Cook, stirring often, until it is just about absorbed. Add another ladleful or two of the stock and continue to cook in this fashion, adding more stock and stirring when the rice is almost dry. You do not have to stir constantly, but stir often. Continue to add stock and stir until the rice is almost tender, about 20 minutes. The rice should still be a little chewy. Add another ladleful of stock and stir in the kale, wild rice and herbs. Stir together until the stock is just about absorbed, about 5 minutes, and add another ladleful of stock. Remove from the heat. Add pepper, taste and adjust seasonings. Stir in the remaining olive oil and the Parmesan if using.

5. Season the surface of the acorn squash with salt, pepper and nutmeg or cayenne (if desired). Fill the hollowed-out squash with the risotto. Place the tops back on the squash and put them in the baking dish or on the sheet pan.

6. Bake 40 minutes, or until the squash is tender all the way through when pierced with a knife.

* To cook the wild rice, bring 2 cups of the stock or water to boil in a medium saucepan. Add salt to taste and the wild rice. When the water returns to the boil, reduce the heat, cover and simmer 40 to 45 minutes, until the rice is tender and has begun to splay. Drain and transfer the rice to a large bowl.

Yield: 6 to 8 generous servings

Advance preparation: The risotto can be made a day ahead, but you will want to heat it and add a little more stock to get the creaminess that will be lost overnight.

Nutritional information per serving (6 servings): 366 calories; 5 grams fat; 1 gram saturated fat; 1 gram polyunsaturated fat; 3 grams monounsaturated fat; 0 milligrams cholesterol; 75 grams carbohydrates; 9 grams dietary fiber; 53 milligrams sodium (does not include salt to taste); 9 grams protein

Nutritional information per serving (8 servings): 274 calories; 4 grams fat; 1 gram saturated fat; 1 gram polyunsaturated fat; 3 grams monounsaturated fat; 0 milligrams cholesterol; 56 grams carbohydrates; 7 grams dietary fiber; 40 milligrams sodium (does not include salt to taste); 6 grams protein

Martha Rose Shulman is the author of “The Very Best of Recipes for Health

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In BP Indictments, U.S. Shifts to Hold Individuals Accountable

HOUSTON — Donald J. Vidrine and Robert Kaluza were the two BP supervisors on board the Deepwater Horizon rig who made the last critical decisions before it exploded. David Rainey was a celebrated BP deepwater explorer who testified to members of Congress about how many barrels of oil were spewing daily in the offshore disaster.

Mr. Vidrine, 65, of Lafayette, La., and Mr. Kaluza, 62, of Henderson, Nev., were indicted on Thursday on manslaughter charges in the deaths of 11 fellow workers; Mr. Rainey, 58, of Houston, was accused of making false estimates and charged with obstruction of Congress. They are the faces of a renewed effort by the Justice Department to hold executives accountable for their actions. While their lawyers said the men were scapegoats, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said at a news conference, “I hope that this sends a clear message to those who would engage in this kind of reckless and wanton conduct.”

The defense lawyers were adamant that their clients would contest the charges, and prosecutors said that the federal investigations were continuing.

Legal scholars said that by charging individuals, the government was signaling a return to the practice of prosecuting officers and managers, and not just their companies, in industrial accidents, which was more common in the 1980s and 1990s.

“If senior managers cut corners, or if they make decisions that put people in harm’s way, then the criminal law is appropriate,” said Jane Barrett, a University of Maryland law professor and former federal prosecutor.

She noted that it was unusual for the Justice Department to prosecute individual corporate officers in recent years, including in the 2005 BP Texas City refinery explosion that killed 15 workers, where only the company was fined.

BP said on Thursday it would pay $4.5 billion in fines and other payments, and the corporation pleaded guilty to 14 criminal charges in connection with spill. The $1.26 billion in criminal fines was the highest since Pfizer in 2009 paid $1.3 billion for illegally marketing an arthritis medication.

The crew was drilling 5,000 feet under the sea floor 41 miles off the Louisiana coast in April 2010 when they lost control of the well during its completion. They tested the pressure of the well, but misinterpreted the test results and underestimated the pressure exerted by the flow of oil or gas up the well. Had the results been properly interpreted, operations would have ceased.

Mr. Vidrine and Mr. Kaluza were negligent in their reading of the kicks of gas popping up from the well that should have suggested that the Deepwater Horizon crew was fast losing control of the ill-fated Macondo well, according to their indictment, and they failed to act or even communicate with their superiors. “Despite these ongoing, glaring indications on the drill pipe that the well was not secure, defendants Kaluza and Vidrine again failed to phone engineers onshore to alert them to the problem, and failed to investigate any further,” the indictment said.

The indictment said they neglected to account for abnormal pressure test results on the well that indicated problems, accepting “illogical” explanations from members of the crew, which caused the “blowout of the well to later occur.”

In a statement, Mr. Kaluza’s lawyers said: “No one should take any satisfaction in this indictment of an innocent man. This is not justice.”

Bob Habans, a lawyer for Mr. Vidrine, called the charges “a miscarriage of justice.”

“We cannot begin to explain or understand the misguided effort of the United States attorney and the Department of Justice to blame Don Vidrine and Bob Kaluza, the other well site leader, for this terrible tragedy.”

Several government and independent reports over the last two years have pointed to sloppy cement jobs in completing the well or the poor design of the well itself as major reasons for the spill. But none of the three was indicted in connection with those problems.

Mr. Rainey was a far more senior executive, one who was known around Houston and the oil world as perhaps the most knowledgeable authority on Gulf oil and gas deposits. According to his indictment, Mr. Rainey obstructed Congressional inquiries and made false statements by underestimating the flow rate to 5,000 barrels a day even as millions were gushing into the Gulf.

Campbell Robertson contributed reporting.

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BBC Failures Show Limits of Guidelines

LONDON — It was 2004, and the British Broadcasting Corporation was gripped by a crisis over journalistic standards that had led to Parliamentary hearings, public recrimination and the resignations of its two top officials. Vowing change, the corporation established elaborate bureaucratic procedures that placed more formal responsibility for delicate decisions in the hands not of individual managers, but of rigid hierarchies.

The corporation also appointed a deputy director general in charge of news operations; established a “journalism board” to monitor editorial policy; issued numerous new guidelines on journalistic procedures; and put an increasing emphasis on “compliance” — a system in which managers are required to file cumbersome forms flagging dozens of potential trouble spots, from bad language to “disturbing content” like exorcism or beheadings, in every program taped for broadcast.

More crises would follow — the history of the BBC can be measured out in crises — and with each new one, the management team under Mark Thompson, director general from 2004 through mid-September 2012, added more guidelines and put more emphasis on form-filling and safety checks in news and entertainment programs. An organization already known for its bureaucracy became even more unwieldy (the editorial guidelines are now 215 pages long).

But it is these very structures that seem to have failed the BBC in the most recent scandal, in which its news division first canceled a child abuse segment it should have broadcast, and later broadcast one it should have canceled. In the first instance, it appears that people overseeing the program were too cautious, so that top managers were left unaware of its existence; in the second, managers may have relied too much on rigid procedures at the expense of basic journalistic principles.

“They burned their fingers,” said Tim Luckhurst, a journalism professor at the University of Kent who worked at the BBC for 10 years. “They wanted systems that could take responsibility instead of people.”

The recent scandal has had a number of immediate results. Mr. Thompson’s successor as director general, George Entwistle, resigned after just 54 days on the job. (Mr. Thompson is now president and chief executive of The New York Times Company.) Outside investigators were appointed to interrogate BBC employees in at least three different inquiries. A number of lower- and midlevel managers had to withdraw temporarily from their jobs and, facing possible disciplinary action, hired lawyers. And, once again, the BBC is talking about reorganizing structures.

Through a spokesman, Mr. Entwistle declined to comment on the scandal or the BBC’s management practices, saying he was “not doing any media interviews at present.” Mr. Thompson also declined to comment.

But Mr. Entwistle’s temporary successor, Tim Davie, who had previously been director of BBC Audio & Music, acknowledged that changes had to be made. “If the public are going to get journalism they trust from the BBC I have to be, as director general, very clear on who’s running the news operation and ensuring that journalism that we put out passes muster,” Mr. Davie said in his first week on the job. The first thing to do, he said, was to “take action and build trust by putting a clear line of command in.”

This is a complicated scandal in two parts. The first part was over the BBC’s decision last December not to broadcast a report saying that Jimmy Savile, a longtime BBC television host, had been a serial child molester, and instead to broadcast several glowing tributes to his career. The second part was its decision on Nov. 2 to accuse a member of Margaret Thatcher’s government of being a pedophile, an accusation that turned out to be patently false.

But both exposed the problems in a system that seems to insulate the BBC’s director general — who is also the editor in chief — from knowledge of basic issues like what potentially contentious programs are scheduled for broadcast. And both decisions were the result, it seems, of a system that failed in practice, even as it was correctly followed in theory.

Ben Bradshaw, a former BBC correspondent and now a Labour member of Parliament, said the 2004 scandal, touched off by reporting about British intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, had created a system based on “fear and anxiety.” The BBC, he added, became “even more bureaucratic and had even more layers, which exacerbated the problem of buck passing and no one being able to take a decision.”

Speaking of the Nov. 2 broadcast, the chairman of the BBC Trust, Chris Patten, said in a television interview that the piece went through “every damned layer of BBC management bureaucracy, legal checks” without anyone raising any serious objections.

Matthew Purdy contributed reporting from New York, and Lark Turner from London.

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Changing of the Guard: China Pressures Businesses to Help Censor Web

BEIJING — As the Chinese cyberpolice stiffened controls on information before the Communist Party leadership transition taking place this week, some companies in Beijing and nearby cities received orders to aid the cause.

Starting earlier this year, Web police units directed the companies, which included joint ventures involving American corporations, to buy and install hardware to log the traffic of hundreds or thousands of computers, block selected Web sites, and connect with local police servers, according to industry executives and official directives obtained by The New York Times. Companies faced the threat of fines and suspended Internet service if they did not comply by prescribed deadlines.

The initiative was one in a range of shadowy tactics authorities deployed in the months leading up to the 18th Party Congress, which is scheduled to end on Wednesday, in an escalating campaign against information deemed threatening to party rule. The effort, while spottily executed, was alarming enough to spur one foreign industry association to lodge a complaint with the government. Several foreign companies quietly resisted the orders, which posed risks to communications and trade secrets that they take pains to secure.

The events surrounding the party congress magnify the constant challenge facing China’s Internet security apparatus, which is to maintain the party’s lock on political power without choking off a wired China from the global economy.

The more intrusive recent measures appear aimed at plugging some of the gaps in China’s nexus of surveillance and censorship, sometimes termed the “great firewall.”

“It goes this way pretty much every time there’s some big political event in Beijing: the DVDs are gone, the prostitutes are gone, and the Internet’s slower,” said David van Meerendonk, an American who operates an information technology company here. “They’re struggling to find a balancing point.”

Over the past couple of weeks, partial blocking has crippled access to Google and other sites, at times completely. It has also disrupted programs that many people here use to circumvent surveillance and reach blocked overseas sites by other means. Some Internet providers have cut service for hours, citing “maintenance.” Democracy activists and foreign journalists have reported increased attacks on their e-mail accounts.

On domestic social networks, already vigorously policed, censors have fine-tuned their craft. Sina Weibo, the nation’s most popular microblogging site, has experimented with “semi-censorship,”as one blog termed it, filtering search results for once-unsearchable terms. One semi-censored term was the Chinese shorthand for the party congress itself: shiba da. Blocking it had prompted some of China’s more playful microbloggers to resort to a similar-sounding English substitute: “Sparta.”

Hu Jintao, China’s departing leader, in his report on the opening day of the congress last Thursday, gave no sign of any relaxation in controls. “We should strengthen social management of the Internet and promote standardized and orderly network operation,” he said.

The police and other agencies rely on legions of local censors, automated filtering and strict regulation of Internet service providers.

GreatFire.org, a Chinese-based blog that tracks government filtering, found in tests this month that Google e-mail was being partly blocked, and that blocking intensified after the congress began. One possible explanation for the strategy was that “authorities are nervous of fully blocking Gmail,” it said. “The government may be scared of a backlash from the urban, educated and young people who tend to use Gmail, not to mention the businesses that rely on it.”

In late summer, the police stepped up jamming on circumvention software, according to two party insiders with Chinese security ties. Students who use Freegate, free software backed by the banned spiritual movement Falun Gong, said that as early as August they experienced unusually frequent disruptions.

China says its online security policies are needed to fight pervasive fraud, cyberattacks, pornography and rumormongering.

Adam Century contributed reporting.

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Recipes for Health: Coiled Greek Winter Squash Pie — Recipes for Health

Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times

This is a beautiful way to present a Greek phyllo-wrapped vegetable pie. The filling is wrapped in phyllo cylinders, which are arranged in a coil in a pan, then baked until crisp. It takes longer to assemble than a regular pie, but it’s worth the time for Thanksgiving. For a vegan version, you can omit the egg and the feta.

 

3 pounds pumpkin or winter squash, like kabocha, seeds and membranes scraped away, cut into large pieces (if using butternut, cut in half crosswise, just above the bulbous bottom part, then cut these halves into lengthwise quarters and scrape away the seeds and membranes)

About 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

2 large leeks, white and light green part only, cleaned well and chopped

1/4 cup chopped fresh mint

1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

1/2 cup (2 1/2 ounces/75 g) lightly toasted walnuts, chopped medium-fine

3 ounces feta cheese, crumbled (about 3/4 cup)

1/4 cup currants

1 egg

Salt and freshly ground pepper

3/4 pound phyllo dough, thawed and at room temperature (more if needed)

 

1. Heat the oven to 425 degrees. Line a baking sheet with foil and oil the foil. Place the squash on the baking sheet and place in the oven. Bake until tender, 40 to 60 minutes, depending on the type of squash and the size of the pieces. Every 15 minutes, use tongs to turn the pieces over so that different surfaces become browned on the foil. Remove from the oven and allow to cool, then peel and place in a bowl. Mash with a fork, a large wooden spoon, a potato masher or a pestle. Turn the oven down to 375 degrees.

2. Heat 1 tablespoon of the olive oil over medium heat in a large, heavy skillet and add the leeks. Cook, stirring, until leeks are tender and just beginning to color, about 5 minutes. Remove from the heat and add to the squash. Stir in the mint, nutmeg, walnuts, feta, currants and 1 tablespoon olive oil. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Beat the egg and stir in.

3. Brush a 12-inch pie pan or cake pan with olive oil and line the bottom with parchment. Brush the parchment with olive oil.

4. Unroll the phyllo dough. Keep it covered with 2 towels, the first one dry and the second one damp. Take a sheet of phyllo and place it on your work surface horizontally (with the long edge closest to you). Brush lightly with olive oil and place another sheet on top. Fold the two layers in half horizontally, with the folded edge at the bottom. Brush with a little more oil. Leaving a 1-inch border on the bottom and sides, and a larger border on the top, spread a thin line of the filling (about 3 heaped tablespoons) down the length of the phyllo. Fold the ends up over the filling, then fold the bottom edge over and carefully roll up into a cylinder about 1 inch thick. Place, seam side down, along the edge of the pan. Continue to wrap the filling and coil the ropes into the pan, starting each cylinder where the last one left off, until the pan is full. If any of the filling and phyllo remains, start another, smaller coil in another pan, or make a little pie.

5. When the pie is assembled, brush the top with olive oil. Bake on the middle rack for 50 to 60 minutes, until nicely browned. Remove from the heat and allow to cool for at least 10 minutes before serving. You can serve this hot or warm. To serve, lift out pieces of the coil for each person.

Yield: 8 to 10 servings.

Advance preparation: This should be baked or frozen once it’s assembled so that the dough doesn’t become too soggy. Transfer directly from the freezer to the oven and add 10 minutes to the baking time. I think it keeps well for a few days once baked, and it can easily be recrisped in a low oven (250 to 300 degrees) for 10 to 20 minutes. The squash can be cooked and mashed 3 or 4 days ahead and kept in the refrigerator in a covered bowl. The filling will keep for 2 or 3 days in the refrigerator.

Nutritional information per serving (8 servings): 368 calories; 17 grams fat; 3 grams saturated fat; 6 grams polyunsaturated fat; 7 grams monounsaturated fat; 33 milligrams cholesterol; 49 grams carbohydrates; 4 grams dietary fiber; 310 milligrams sodium (does not include salt to taste); 8 grams protein

Nutritional information per serving (10 servings): 294 calories; 13 grams fat; 3 grams saturated fat; 5 grams polyunsaturated fat; 6 grams monounsaturated fat; 26 milligrams cholesterol; 39 grams carbohydrates; 4 grams dietary fiber; 248 milligrams sodium (does not include salt to taste); 7 grams protein

Martha Rose Shulman is the author of “The Very Best of Recipes for Health

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Recipes for Health: Coiled Greek Winter Squash Pie — Recipes for Health

Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times

This is a beautiful way to present a Greek phyllo-wrapped vegetable pie. The filling is wrapped in phyllo cylinders, which are arranged in a coil in a pan, then baked until crisp. It takes longer to assemble than a regular pie, but it’s worth the time for Thanksgiving. For a vegan version, you can omit the egg and the feta.

 

3 pounds pumpkin or winter squash, like kabocha, seeds and membranes scraped away, cut into large pieces (if using butternut, cut in half crosswise, just above the bulbous bottom part, then cut these halves into lengthwise quarters and scrape away the seeds and membranes)

About 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

2 large leeks, white and light green part only, cleaned well and chopped

1/4 cup chopped fresh mint

1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

1/2 cup (2 1/2 ounces/75 g) lightly toasted walnuts, chopped medium-fine

3 ounces feta cheese, crumbled (about 3/4 cup)

1/4 cup currants

1 egg

Salt and freshly ground pepper

3/4 pound phyllo dough, thawed and at room temperature (more if needed)

 

1. Heat the oven to 425 degrees. Line a baking sheet with foil and oil the foil. Place the squash on the baking sheet and place in the oven. Bake until tender, 40 to 60 minutes, depending on the type of squash and the size of the pieces. Every 15 minutes, use tongs to turn the pieces over so that different surfaces become browned on the foil. Remove from the oven and allow to cool, then peel and place in a bowl. Mash with a fork, a large wooden spoon, a potato masher or a pestle. Turn the oven down to 375 degrees.

2. Heat 1 tablespoon of the olive oil over medium heat in a large, heavy skillet and add the leeks. Cook, stirring, until leeks are tender and just beginning to color, about 5 minutes. Remove from the heat and add to the squash. Stir in the mint, nutmeg, walnuts, feta, currants and 1 tablespoon olive oil. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Beat the egg and stir in.

3. Brush a 12-inch pie pan or cake pan with olive oil and line the bottom with parchment. Brush the parchment with olive oil.

4. Unroll the phyllo dough. Keep it covered with 2 towels, the first one dry and the second one damp. Take a sheet of phyllo and place it on your work surface horizontally (with the long edge closest to you). Brush lightly with olive oil and place another sheet on top. Fold the two layers in half horizontally, with the folded edge at the bottom. Brush with a little more oil. Leaving a 1-inch border on the bottom and sides, and a larger border on the top, spread a thin line of the filling (about 3 heaped tablespoons) down the length of the phyllo. Fold the ends up over the filling, then fold the bottom edge over and carefully roll up into a cylinder about 1 inch thick. Place, seam side down, along the edge of the pan. Continue to wrap the filling and coil the ropes into the pan, starting each cylinder where the last one left off, until the pan is full. If any of the filling and phyllo remains, start another, smaller coil in another pan, or make a little pie.

5. When the pie is assembled, brush the top with olive oil. Bake on the middle rack for 50 to 60 minutes, until nicely browned. Remove from the heat and allow to cool for at least 10 minutes before serving. You can serve this hot or warm. To serve, lift out pieces of the coil for each person.

Yield: 8 to 10 servings.

Advance preparation: This should be baked or frozen once it’s assembled so that the dough doesn’t become too soggy. Transfer directly from the freezer to the oven and add 10 minutes to the baking time. I think it keeps well for a few days once baked, and it can easily be recrisped in a low oven (250 to 300 degrees) for 10 to 20 minutes. The squash can be cooked and mashed 3 or 4 days ahead and kept in the refrigerator in a covered bowl. The filling will keep for 2 or 3 days in the refrigerator.

Nutritional information per serving (8 servings): 368 calories; 17 grams fat; 3 grams saturated fat; 6 grams polyunsaturated fat; 7 grams monounsaturated fat; 33 milligrams cholesterol; 49 grams carbohydrates; 4 grams dietary fiber; 310 milligrams sodium (does not include salt to taste); 8 grams protein

Nutritional information per serving (10 servings): 294 calories; 13 grams fat; 3 grams saturated fat; 5 grams polyunsaturated fat; 6 grams monounsaturated fat; 26 milligrams cholesterol; 39 grams carbohydrates; 4 grams dietary fiber; 248 milligrams sodium (does not include salt to taste); 7 grams protein

Martha Rose Shulman is the author of “The Very Best of Recipes for Health

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Obama Meets C.E.O.’s as Fiscal Reckoning Nears

Luke Sharrett for The New York Times

Ursula M. Burns, chief of Xerox, said the president discussed few specifics of a potential agreement but emphasized that “we cannot go over the fiscal cliff.”

WASHINGTON — President Obama extended an olive branch to business leaders Wednesday, seeking their support as he prepared to negotiate with Congressional Republicans over the fiscal impasse in Washington.

If Congress and the president cannot reach a deal to reduce the deficit by January, more than $600 billion in tax increases and spending cuts will go into effect immediately — a prospect many chief executives and others warn could tip the economy back into recession.

Even so, Mr. Obama has some fence-mending to do before he can count on any serious backing from the business community.

“The president brought up that he hadn’t always had the best relationship with business, and he didn’t think he deserved that, but he understood that’s where things were and wanted it to be better,” said David M. Cote, chief executive of Honeywell. He was one of a dozen corporate leaders invited to meet Mr. Obama at the White House for 90 minutes Wednesday afternoon, after the president’s first news conference since the election.

While Mr. Obama did not present a detailed plan at Wednesday’s meeting or reveal what he would propose in terms of new corporate taxes, he strongly reiterated that he would not allow tax cuts for the middle class to expire. The president, according to attendees and aides, said he was committed to a balanced approach of reductions in entitlements and other government spending and increases in revenue.

With time running out, many people expect the president and Republican leaders in Congress to come up with a short-term compromise that prevents the full slate of tax increases and spending cuts from hitting in January. That would give both sides more time to come up with a far-reaching deal on entitlement spending, even as they work on a broad tax overhaul later next year.

One corporate official briefed on the meeting said that the chief executives came away with a sense that Mr. Obama was poised to present a more formal proposal in the next few days, but that he did not press them for support on particular policies. “It was more of a back and forth,” he said.

The chief executives from some of the country’s biggest and best-known companies, including Procter & Gamble and I.B.M., were not unified on everything, according to one who was interviewed after the meeting.

Many of the executives who described the meeting would speak only on condition of anonymity.

The outreach to business comes as both the White House and corporate America maneuver ahead of the year-end deadline, as well as the beginning of Mr. Obama’s second term. Many executives were put off by what they saw as antibusiness rhetoric coming from the White House in his first term, and many also oppose tax increases on the rich that Mr. Obama favors but would hit them personally.

Both sides have plenty to gain from a better relationship. Business leaders want to buffer their image after the recession and the financial crisis, while Mr. Obama would gain valuable leverage if he could persuade even a few chief executives to come out in favor of higher taxes on people with incomes over $250,000.

Lloyd C. Blankfein, chief executive of Goldman Sachs, publicly endorsed higher tax rates in an opinion article published in The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday.

“I believe that tax increases, especially for the wealthiest, are appropriate, but only if they are joined by serious cuts in discretionary spending and entitlements,” he wrote.

While Mr. Blankfein and other Wall Street leaders have been speaking out about the dangers of the fiscal impasse, only one executive from the financial services industry, Kenneth I. Chenault of American Express, was at Wednesday’s meeting.

Afterward, the corporate leaders seemed pleased with the tone of the meeting but cautious about the prospect of finding common ground with the White House on the budget choices facing Congress and the president.

“I’d say everybody came away feeling pretty good about the whole discussion,” Mr. Cote said. “Now, all of us are C.E.O.’s, so we’ve learned not to confuse words with results. And that’s what we still need to see.”

Ursula M. Burns, chief executive of Xerox, who was also at the meeting, said afterward that it was clear that “we’re going to have to work through some sticking points.” But while “we didn’t get into too many specifics,” she said, it was also made clear that “we cannot go over the fiscal cliff.”

Ms. Burns’s comments about the potentially dire consequences of the fiscal impasse echoed those of other chief executives, including many in the Business Roundtable, which began an ad campaign Tuesday calling on lawmakers to resolve the issue quickly. The Campaign to Fix the Debt, a new group with a $40 million budget and the support of many Fortune 500 chiefs, began its own ad campaign on Monday.

Michael T. Duke, chief executive of Wal-Mart Stores, warned in a statement after the meeting that “before the end of the year, Washington needs to find an agreement to avoid the fiscal cliff.” He said Walmart customers “are working hard to adapt to the ‘new normal,’ but their confidence is still very fragile. They are shopping for Christmas now, and they don’t need uncertainty over a tax increase.”

 

Helene Cooper reported from Washington and Nelson D. Schwartz from New York. Jackie Calmes contributed reporting from Washington.

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France Grants Its Recognition to Syria Rebels

Javier Manzano/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Smoke billowed from burning tires as a Syria rebel fired towards regime forces during clashes in the Al-Amariya district of Aleppo in Syria on Tuesday.

PARIS — France announced Tuesday that it was recognizing the newly formed Syrian rebel coalition and would consider arming the group, seeking to inject momentum into a broad Western and Arab effort to build a viable and effective opposition that would hasten the end of a stalemated civil war that has destabilized the Middle East.

The announcement by President François Hollande made France the first Western country to fully embrace the new coalition, which came together this past weekend under Western pressure after days of difficult negotiations in Doha, Qatar.

The goal was to make an opposition leadership — both inside and outside the country — representative of the array of Syrian groups pressing for the downfall of President Bashar al-Assad. Although Mr. Assad is increasingly isolated as his country descends further into mayhem and despair after 20 months of conflict, he has survived partly because of the disagreements and lack of unity among his opponents.

Throughout the conflict, the West has taken half measures and been reluctant to back an aggressive effort to oust Mr. Assad. This appears to be the first time that Western nations, with Arab allies, are determined to build a viable opposition leadership that can ultimately function as a government. Whether it can succeed remains unclear.

Mr. Hollande went beyond other Western pledges of support for the new Syrian umbrella rebel group, which calls itself the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces. But Mr. Hollande’s announcement clearly signaled expectations that if the group can establish political legitimacy and an operational structure inside Syria, creating an alternative to the Assad family’s four decades in power, it will be rewarded with further recognition, money and possibly weapons.

“I announce that France recognizes the Syrian National Coalition as the sole representative of the Syrian people and thus as the future provisional government of a democratic Syria and to bring an end to Bashar al-Assad’s regime,” said Mr. Hollande, who has been one of the Syrian president’s harshest critics.

As for weapons, Mr. Hollande said, France had not supported arming the rebels up to now, but “with the coalition, as soon as it is a legitimate government of Syria, this question will be looked at by France, but also by all countries that recognize this government.”

Political analysts called Mr. Hollande’s announcement an important moment in the Syrian conflict, which began as a peaceful Arab Spring uprising in March 2011. It was harshly suppressed by Mr. Assad, turned into a civil war and has left nearly 40,000 Syrians dead, displaced about 2.5 million and forced more than 400,000 to flee to neighboring countries, according to international relief agencies.

“It’s certainly another page of the story,” Augustus Richard Norton, a professor of international relations at Boston University and an expert on Middle East political history, said of the French announcement. “I think it’s important. But it will be much more important if other countries follow suit. I don’t think we’re quite there yet.”

Some drew an analogy to France’s leading role in the early days of the Libyan uprising when it helped funnel aid, and later military support, to the rebels who had firmly established themselves in eastern Libya and would later topple Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi. But in Syria, rebels have not been as organized and have no hold on significant amounts of territory — at least not enough to create a provisional government that could resist Mr. Assad’s military assaults. The West has also refused, so far, to impose a no-fly zone over Syria, which was critical to the success of the Libyan uprising.

Andrew J. Tabler, a Syria expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said that the new coalition would have to create a secure zone in Syria to be successful, and that that step would require support from the United States, which was instrumental in the negotiations that led to the group’s creation but has not yet committed to giving it full recognition.

What the French have done, Mr. Tabler said, is significant because they have started the process of broader recognition, putting pressure on the group to succeed. “They’ve decided to back this umbrella organization and hope that it has some kind of political legitimacy and keep it from going to extremists,” he said. “It’s a gamble. The gamble is that it will stiffen the backs of the opposition.”

Steven Erlanger reported from Paris, and Rick Gladstone from New York. Reporting was contributed by Neil MacFarquhar and Hwaida Saad from Beirut, Lebanon; Nick Cumming-Bruce from Geneva; and Richard Berry from Paris.

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At Microsoft, Sinofsky Seen as Smart but Abrasive

On a warm night in late October, Steven Sinofsky stood on a platform in New York’s Times Square, smiling as a huge crowd roared at the unveiling of a Microsoft retail store, where Windows 8 and the company’s new Surface tablet were about to go on sale.

Less than three weeks later, Mr. Sinofsky — who, as the head of Windows, was arguably the second-most important leader at Microsoft — suddenly left the company. His abrasive style was a source of discord within Microsoft, and he and Steven A. Ballmer, Microsoft’s chief executive, agreed that it was time for him to leave, according to a person briefed on the situation who was not authorized to speak publicly about it.

Mr. Sinofsky was widely admired for his effectiveness in running one of the biggest and most important software development organizations on the planet. But his departure, which Microsoft announced late on Monday, parallels in many respects that of Scott Forstall, the headstrong former head of Apple’s mobile software development, who was fired by Apple’s chief executive, Timothy D. Cook, in late October.

Both cases underscore a quandary that chief executives sometimes face: when do the costs of keeping brilliant leaders who cannot seem to get along with others outweigh the benefits?

The tipping point that led to Mr. Sinofsky’s departure came after an accumulation of run-ins with Mr. Ballmer and other company leaders, rather than a single incident, according to interviews with several current and former Microsoft executives who declined to be named discussing internal matters.

One example of the kind of behavior that hurt Mr. Sinofsky’s standing at the company occurred this year at a two-day retreat for Microsoft’s senior executives at the Semiahmoo resort on the coast just below the Canadian border in Washington State. At the meeting, Microsoft’s various division heads were expected to make presentations on their businesses, answer questions and remain to hear their peers repeat the exercise.

When Mr. Sinofsky stood on the first day to speak about the Windows division, he told the group he had not prepared a presentation, and if they wanted to catch up on the progress of Windows 8, they could read his company blog, where he publicly chronicled the software’s development. He answered questions from the audience and then left the resort, while his colleagues remained until the next day, according to multiple people who were present.

Mr. Sinofsky’s early exit and halfhearted presentation were widely noted by his colleagues, irking even his admirers in the company. “He lost a lot of support,” one attendee said.

It wasn’t until this Monday, though, that Mr. Sinofsky and Mr. Ballmer both decided it would be best if Mr. Sinofsky left. Bill Gates, Microsoft’s chairman, supported the move, a person briefed on the matter said. Mr. Sinofsky served as a technical assistant to Mr. Gates in the 1990s.

In an e-mail to Microsoft employees, Mr. Sinofsky said the decision to leave “was a personal and private choice.” Many surprised Microsoft insiders noted that Mr. Sinofsky’s departure was immediate, an unusual arrangement for someone with a 23-year track record at the company. A Microsoft spokesman, Frank Shaw, said Mr. Sinofsky was not available to comment.

Although Mr. Ballmer grew increasingly impatient with Mr. Sinofsky throughout the year, he held back from taking any action earlier to avoid disrupting the release of Windows 8, the most important product Microsoft has unveiled in years, a person with knowledge of his thinking said.

The final decision could not have come lightly. Although many people at Microsoft viewed him as a ruthless corporate schemer, Mr. Sinofsky ran the highly complex organization responsible for Windows as a disciplined army that met deadlines, and he was respected by people on his team.

He achieved hero status within Microsoft several years ago by taking over the leadership of Windows after the debacle that was Windows Vista, a much-delayed operating system whose sluggish performance and technical problems worsened Microsoft’s reputation for mediocre software. Mr. Sinfosky led the development of a new version of the operating system, Windows 7, which was positively reviewed and sold well.

“He did great things with Windows,” said Michael Cusumano, a professor at the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “That’s still the core of the company.”

But while Mr. Sinofsky was effective, Mr. Cusumano said, he could be secretive and difficult to get along with, as he learned while dealing with Mr. Sinofsky while Mr. Cusumano was writing a book on Microsoft in the early 1990s. “I could imagine that he burned a lot of bridges and created a bunch of enemies,” he said.

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