Quick takes on food

Event

Riesling celebration

Madderlake Café is hosting a Riesling Celebration with Anthony Road Wine Co., Fox Run Vineyards and Red Tail Ridge Winery on Friday at the restaurant, 5286 Route 14, Geneva. The event starts at 6 p.m. with a tasting and hors d'oeuvres reception. A three-course family-style dinner follows. The cost is $30 plus tax and gratuity for the tasting and dinner (wines can be purchased to accompany the meal). Reservations are required. Call (315) 781-2424. In other news, Madderlake Café is moving. The restaurant will be serving at its current location until the end of the month, then will announce its new location by mid-summer. Stay tuned for more details via the Web site, www.madderlake.net.

Event

Wine tasting, auction

Tickets are now on sale for Around the World 15th Annual Wine Tasting & Auction, a fundraiser for St. Joseph's Neighborhood Center. It starts at 5:30 p.m. June 3 at Temple B'rith Kodesh, 2131 Elmwood Ave., Brighton. The event will include tastings from six Finger Lakes wineries and a local brewcrafter, plus appetizers, silent and live auctions. Tickets are $40, and reservations are recommended. Call (585) 325-5260.

New products

Pizza, ice cream

Knapp Winery & Vineyard has introduced an ice cream parlor and pizzeria. The ice cream, made by Cayuga Lake Creamery, is made with Knapp wines. Flavors include strawberry Chardonnay, black cherry Jubilee, peach Riesling, and logan berry chocolate. A four-ounce container is $1.95, 8-ounce is $3.95 and 16-ounce is $7.95. The pizzas are made on site in Knapp's new wood-fired stone oven. Single serving pizzas are $6.75. Pizza and ice cream are available during tasting room hours, 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. daily. Knapp is at 2770 County Road 128, Romulus, Seneca County. Call (800) 869-9271 or go to www.knappwine.com.

Food safety

Tips for grilling

Don't expect to see rare meat when Christine Bruhn bites into a hamburger. She researches food safety and consumer issues at University of California at Davis' Department of Food Science and Technology, and she knows it doesn't take much undercooked ground beef to make a person seriously sick.

"Just 10 cells of E. coli can send a person to the hospital," says Bruhn.

Here are some tips from Bruhn to keep in mind during your cookouts:

Be careful of cross-contamination: "Some people use the same plate to carry both the raw and cooked (food). People might rinse the plate, but those bacteria are still there. Water is not enough. You need a clean plate."

Same goes for that burger-flipping spatula.

Don't use color as a guideline for doneness: "Many believe that meat is done when it turns brown. Color is not an adequate indicator of the thoroughness of cooking. One out of four burgers turn brown before they reach 160 degrees, which is the recommended temperature."

Invest in a cooking thermometer and use it: "Most people don't want to take the temperature of a hamburger because they think it's too much work. My graduate student is doing a project watching people prepare burgers, and none of them used a thermometer. They say, 'Oh, it's ready,' but a third of the burgers had not reached the proper temperature."

Rare steak is OK, but make sure the meat's surface is seared: "Steak is different than ground beef. With steak, the bacteria is on the surface and on the edges. So if you just sear it, you're (killing) the bacteria. With ground beef, since it's all ground and mixed up, what used to be on the surface is now on the inside."

Eat charred food in moderation: "Some chemicals, eaten in sufficient quantities, can be carcinogenic. That's still eating it a lot, every day. A little charring on burgers is OK. The buildup will be low and you will naturally remove those toxins."

Karen Miltner compiled this column from staff and wire reports.