20 | DECEMBER 9 • 2021 

OUR COMMUNITY

O

n the new NBC show 
Baking It, Detroit-
born journalist and 
comedian Norma Zager is 
known as the “Jewish bubbie.
”
The former Detroit Jewish 
News contributor will be one 
of four hosts judging the new 
baking series produced by Amy 
Poehler, which will stream 
on NBC’s streaming service 
Peacock beginning Dec. 2 and 
began airing on NBC Dec. 3.
“I am Bubbie Norma,
” Zager, 
74, of Beverly Hills, California, 
jokes. 
The six-episode show, 
co-hosted by Maya Rudolph 
and Andy Samberg, will 
feature eight teams competing 
for a chance to win $50,000. 
Zager will help play a role in 
determining which team goes 
home with the grand prize, 
tasting their extraordinary 
baking creations along the way.
“The food was so delicious,
” 
Zager says. “They really made 
some unbelievable food.
”
One team, Zager reveals, 
even made an edible menorah 
just in time for Chanukah. “I 
had never seen anything like 
it before,
” she explains. “That 
really was one of the standouts 
of the show.
”
Each episode will feature a 
different baking theme, while 
the entire show has a holiday 
feel thanks to its December 
release. Zager says her three 
co-judges are fellow “grandmas” 
who have decades of experience 
when it comes to food, 
seriously raising the bar for the 
competition.

“You’re talking about 
bringing foods to a bunch 
of old grandmas who pretty 
much have seen and ate it all 
by now,
” she says. “Yet we were 
constantly surprised by the 
originality of these bakers.
”
Zager, who grew up in 
northwest Detroit, graduated 
from Mumford High School in 
1964 and studied at Michigan 
State University and Wayne 
State University, graduating 
from the latter in 1969.
She began her career working 
at the now-defunct Oak Park 
News as a journalist, later 
freelance writing for the Detroit 
Jewish News.
After developing a love for 
comedy and writing jokes, 
Zager sold her work to some 
of the biggest stars of our time, 
including Joan Rivers. “She was 
paying $10 a joke,
” Zager recalls.
Encouraged to move forward 
with her comedy career, she 
tried a night of standup at Royal 

Oak’s Mark Ridley’s Comedy 
Castle. It was a bust, but Zager 
wasn’t deterred. She tried 
again, using leftover jokes that 
Rivers didn’t buy on her second 
attempt at standup comedy.
“They got laughs and that 
was it,
” she remembers of the 
jokes she told. “I was hooked.
”
For 14 years, Zager did 
standup comedy. Eventually, 
she made her way back 
to journalism, moving to 
California in December 1993. 
She became a reporter and then 
an editor at the Beverly Hills 
Courier, covering major stories 
such as the activism of Erin 
Brockovich.
Winning awards for her 
reporting, Zager even wrote a 
book about the experience titled 
Erin Brockovich and the Beverly 
Hills Greenscam.
In addition to comedy and 
journalism, Zager has a love 
for baking. While working in 
comedy, she started her baking 

business Norma’s 14K Cookies 
in 1994, selling baked goods to 
shows like Roseanne and Seinfeld. 
She also hosted a cooking and 
comedy show in Las Vegas.
Through her diverse 
career, which also included 
appearances on HGTV and 
daytime talk shows, Zager 
eventually landed a spot on 
a Food Network show called 
Clash of the Grandmas in 2015.
When casting was being 
held for Baking It, the staff 
remembered Zager from her 
time on the Food Network 
show.
“They called and asked 
if I would be interested in 
auditioning for a new baking 
show,
” she laughs. “I said, ‘Yes, 
as long as I don’t have to cook.
’ 
So they said, ‘No. We want 
you as a judge.
’ 
 “I got the show and they hired 
me to be one of the grandma 
judges on Baking It.
” 

Norma Zager and Andy Samberg

Detroit-born journalist and comedian Norma Zager 
will judge new NBC show Baking It.
The Jewish Bubbie

ASHLEY ZLATOPOLSKY CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Maya Rudolph and Norma Zager

