Five Minutes with Dana McCauley

Dana McCauley returns to the small screen for season two of the Food Network Canada hit, Recipe to Riches. The competition reality series gives amateur Canadian cooks an opportunity to share their most delicious recipes and compete for a grand prize worth $250,000. The expert panel includes Laura Calder (French Food at Home) Tony Chapman (Capital C) and Dana McCauley. Their job is to choose three finalists to compete in seven specific food categories, from appetizers to desserts.

McCauley is the culinary director for Janes Family Foods and brings her expertise with new product innovation to the show. McCauley went through school for English literature and then headed to culinary school before becoming one of the top food trend experts, writing many food articles, producing five cookbooks and working with big North American brands, like Coca Cola. Her husband, Martin Kouprie is executive chef and co-owner of Toronto’s acclaimed Pangaea Restaurant, so it is as expected that the couple eats, and drinks, very well.

What can viewers expect from Season Two of Recipes to Riches?

It is a little different. This year, I think it's going to be a lot more clear about what the judges are doing in their various roles. For instance, I'll be going to do all the match up challenges and I'll be giving the finalists tips. And if they follow them, great. And if they don't follow them, not so great. Last year, we were feeling out the format. There was stuff we thought of that we wish we'd taped.

And my hair is way better this year. Last year, that was a tragic haircut. It was horrible. I hated every second of it.

What's your go-to cookbook?

My Top 10 Table book was just a collection of all my own favourite weeknight recipes. I literally cook out of it twice a week. In fact, last night's dinner was out of that book.

As far as books that I find inspiring, I've been going back to the Nobu cookbook from a few years ago. I think it might have been one of his first books, the hardcover book with the blue on the cover. I've been really enjoying his recipes. Everything in that book is so simple but just so, so good.

What are your favourite restaurants in Toronto?

Our family travels a lot and we really like to find really authentic places to make things we can't really make at home because we don't have the background. So, we've got a Vietnamese restaurant in our neighbourhood that makes fantastic pho. My brother is engaged to a woman who is from Beijing and she's been exposing me to all of the really great Chinese restaurants that specialize in particular areas. She took our family to a restaurant called Ding Tai Fung in Markham and it was so fresh and so good.

What wine do you always have on hand?

I'm a big Sancerre lover. Even in the winter time when it is cold, there's nothing like a nice crisp, cold Sancerre. Then as a back up, I'd go for a sauvignon blanc from the Marlborough region in New Zealand.

As far as reds go, Martin and I both really love amarone but our budget doesn't let us drink that on a daily basis. So, we pour a lot of pinot noir, particularly from Oregon, so those are faves of ours.

Our fallback is always Veuve Clicquot. Every year on my birthday, Martin buys me 12 bottles and we drink one on each full moon, which I know sounds really gaggy, but it is true! When you're married to a chef, you don't always get a Saturday night date, right? But if you know that every full moon, you're going to open a bottle of Champagne.

Do you collect wine?

I don't. Martin does. He has a wonderful, wonderful motto and that's "when the going gets tough, the family drinks well." If we're feeling pinched economically, he'll dip into the best wine, or if we're under stress, he'll go into the good wines.

So if you look into our recycle box and it is really fantastic Bordeaux than it is really shitty at home. But if you look in there and you see all stuff in the $25 range, you know that all is well. It's Martin's thing, he's funny.

Martin really likes the really big houses in California and he's an Old World-wine guy. He collects Austrian riesling and a lot of Bordeaux. We cruise the world as far as alcohol goes, but if you were to follow him around, those would be the places he navigates to naturally and then he'll experiment outside of those tried and trues.

He owns a restaurant so he gets to try lots of wine so sometimes that leads him to discover something new. This summer, all of a sudden, we had chianti every time I turned around. But that was unusual and six months ago I would have bet against that, having chianti in our house, because it wasn't something I thought he really liked.

Recipe to Riches premires on Food Network Canada October 17 at 9 pm ET.

Read more about Dana McCauley, her favourite comfort foods and places to shop on up! magazine.