Three reality show stars you should know

True tales of TV trials

Amy Rosen

Roasted by a gang of Dragons

After finding initial success in Toronto as a cinnamon bun entrepreneur, the opportunity to bring her bake-at-home pastries and spreads to Dragons’ Den was something this Cordon Bleu chef couldn’t resist.

But her pitch didn’t impress the judges much.

During an episode taped last summer—which premiered in December— she stumbled when answering questions about her corporate finances. Still, it’s given her the chance to laugh about being nationally humiliated on CBC Television.

While she initially accepted a $300,000 buyout offer for her company, the deal with the panel of celebrity investors later fell through.

Now, she’s focused on expanding a retail network across Canada, with the ability to label these products “As Seen on Dragons’ Den.”

A long-time food writer in her own right—Kosher Style was the most recent of her five cookbooks—Amy Rosen’s pastry-making skills also put her on the radar for a Food Network Canada competition series, Wall of Bakers.

Donning a white chef jacket, she judged the entrants alongside top dessert-making names like Anna Olson, Lynn Crawford and Christine Cushing.

But the show had more Jewish representation than most of its kind, thanks to host Noah Cappe, and the baker who ended up taking a top prize of $10,000: Melina Schein, a professional singer based in Vernon, B.C., who explored her heritage in the kitchen while being unable to perform live during a couple years of lockdowns.

Schein even gave herself an online persona: “The Saucy Soprano.”

Melina Schein

Trading sequins for a mixing bowl

After what she describes as three weeks spent in a fetal position on the couch, the furloughed vocalist got to work—by treating her kitchen as a stage. With the singing came a challenge harkening back to her family roots: making 400 traditional Jewish recipes, even if they involved paying exorbitant sums to ship the ingredients to her home in the Okanagan region of British Columbia’s Southern Interior.

But spending $40 for a box of matzo shipped from Victoria paid dividends in other ways for Melina Schein.

The exposure led her to Wall of Bakers.

“The Saucy Soprano” won her episode, which aired in March 2022, with a finale of a black-and-white cookie and egg cream drink, inspired by the delis she remembered visiting with her grandparents on the Lower East Side of New York.

Schein got back on stage this spring in a musical tribute to Andrew Lloyd Webber, including her favourites from The Phantom of the Opera. Still, she hopes to get back on the Food Network—or anywhere else that will let her show off her Jewish cooking skills, and her voice.

True tales of TV trials

Kevin Jacobs

This houseguest took $100,000 home

Just one North American winner in the history of the global franchise Big Brother can say that he learned his reality show skills at Jewish summer camp.

And it involved beating out 15 other sequestered competitors for a prize of $100,000 in the 10th season of the Canadian series, which ran for 70 days from March to May.

He did it in his hometown of Toronto, too: Kevin Jacobs attended TannenbaumCHAT for high school, and has a day job in tech sales.

But nothing prepared him for Big Brother Canada like living in a cabin with a group of guys—and the communication skills required to get along.

Jacobs also credits his Jewish background to help him navigate tough conversations, by being accustomed to airing things out in the open.

And since the 10 weeks on the show encompassed Passover, he acknowledged it by holding a seder in the household, which came with its own challenge.

During a contest where rivals are known to tell little lies to get ahead, Jacobs had to explain to one fellow houseguest that he didn’t invent this ceremony himself.