Best. Chopped. Ever.

The Food Network show "Chopped" is often aggravating (male ego runs rampant as usual) and often amusing (male ego runs rampant as usual), and the hour almost always flies frenetically by in a diverting way. But never before have I been moved to tears by an episode of a competitive cooking show as I was by "Chopped" last night.

This time the show featured four high school cafeteria chefs, who were extraordinary everyday people, full of creativity, dedication, and common sense. That these wonderful women are called "lunch ladies" instead of the chefs they obviously are, and that behind this designation often hides a system of unreasonable demands and heartbreaking disrespect was actually a theme bubbling regularly up to the surface the whole episode through.

I must say, rarely have the competitors on the show been so uniformly supportive of one another, so helpful in the kitchen or complimentary of the talents of the others who were there, so kind and humorous in their interactions. On your usual episode of "Chopped," as on so many televised cooking competitions, a helpful competitor who disdains cut-throat brutality is often deemed "timid" or "lacking fire in the belly" or "refusing to stand up for their vision" and so these shows endlessly reward those traits of character which in the real world are almost universally disdained as those of unpleasant assholes, unhelpful bullies, untrustworthy cheats, uninteresting egomaniacs.

Given how regularly these swinging dick braggarts completely fall apart under the least pressure, or start bawling about how misunderstood they are or how they miss having their wives around to kiss their boo boos the second they face the consequences of their rampages there is usually a reasonably entertaining comeuppance attached to the endless enabling of boys will be boys misconduct in these shows -- but it remains the case that palpably false premises are disproportionately cherished in the genre, bad boys are treated as though they are charming rather than tedious and nice folks still finish last all too often rather than being cherished as they are in the real world where things actually have to work.

Anyway, on last night's "Chopped," White House chef and healthy food activist Sam Kass was a guest judge, and questions of affordable nutrition, obesity, childhood hunger, stressed public school budgets, overworked public servants, and many other issues emerged in a powerful, natural, non-pedantic way throughout the hour. These indispensable and yet often overlooked women (representative of countless thousands of dedicated women and men in this demanding and neglected field of work) were thanked for their service as they should be, were celebrated as heroes as they should be, were rewarded for their effort and good works as they should be. And none of this diminished in the least the inherent drama of the competition, even if I thought they soft-peddled the demands of the mystery ingredient baskets a little bit for the contestants.

Spelling all this out risks the impression that there was something preachy or pedagogical about the episode, but nothing could be further from the truth. It was actually perfectly charming, the judges have rarely seemed more likeable or fair, and even if some real-world awareness managed to creep into the program, it was for me by far the most emotionally satisfying entertainment the show has afforded in its run. One wishes that what got chopped by last night's episode were so many of the reactionary and sociopathic attitudes and conceits that still suffuse the genre more generally. I doubt I am the only fan who would still be watching every week if generosity and fairness and eccentricity were celebrated on shows like "Top Chef" and "Chopped" in addition to all the predictable bad behavior and tedious male ego endlessly on display now.