While I really enjoyed this season of Top Chef, I have to take issue with the choice of winner.

Spoilers after the jump.

It’s not because Hung is obnoxious. He’s clearly talented and enthusiastic and he’s got amazing skills. It’s just that, if one of your dishes for the final competition is a molten chocolate cake, which looks like something you can order at any Applebees, you should take a serious, serious hit in evaluation from the judges.

I think a failed dish that shows imagination and ambition should be ranked significantly higher than an only slightly higher-end version of something that any home cook in America can make in about 10 minutes of prep time. (I love making them because they’re impressive, the ingredients are cheap and fairly common pantry staples, and they’re really, really easy.)

But Tom Colicchio was just determined that Hung would win, as he has been since practically the beginning. It’s not a horrible miscarriage of reality show justice, because I do think Hung and Dale were pretty much neck and neck, but seriously… molten chocolate cake… total disqualifier, in my opinion.

In other chocolate news, this development doesn’t surprise me at all. I hate white chocolate.

I’m really pleased with this season of Top Chef. Maybe it’s partly due to the fact that last season was such a parade of personality disorders with little or no content that focused on cuisine, but there’s a much better balance this year. People still get to be obnoxious and dysfunctional, but rarely at the expense of what they’re cooking. More often than not, obnoxiousness actually results in a contestant’s downfall, as opposed to carrying them to the finale.

Speaking of the finale, spoilers after the cut:

I’m pretty pleased with the final three contestants. The weird thing is that I would have been happy with just about any combination of the final six. (Okay, any trio of contestants after the departure of Howie, who annoyed me by opting out almost as often as he competed.)

Hung is an egotistical dork, but at least he’s got significant culinary skills to partially justify his demeanor. He can cook, and he seems young, so a certain amount of hubris is to be expected.

I don’t really have strong feelings about Casey one way or the other, though I will say that I would eat just about everything she’s cooked. Her flavor combinations and preparations always sound tempting, she works hard, and she’s unfailingly collegial to her fellow competitors.

I’m shamelessly partial to Big Gay Dale, though. As with Casey, his dishes always sound good to me, and I think he’s generally funny and adorable without being caustic or unkind. (Or crying all the time, like season one’s Big Gay Dave.)

So, I won’t be too unhappy no matter who wins. That’s always fun.

I don’t make a point of watching it, but every time I see a bit of an episode of The Next Food Network Star, I become depressed. It’s such a celebration of camera friendliness over anything resembling a culinary sensibility, and it symbolizes everything that bothers me about the network’s recent programming trends. Just give me one half-hour with a serious cook who will actually talk about culinary techniques and food and not try so hard to charm me.

As for the third season of Top Chef, I’m just not engaged. The second season seemed like a particularly unpleasant year on The Real World, so maybe I’m gun shy. The contestants aren’t as obnoxious as they were last year, but I just can’t get into it. Maybe it’s the Miami setting. It seems too trendy.

Okay, ending on a more positive note, I’ve had really good luck with Giada De Laurentiis’s dessert recipes. I like these cheesecake squares a lot and have made them twice. They’re good with the limoncello, but they work nicely with lemon juice if you don’t have that particular liqueur on hand and don’t feel like buying a bottle. (I used up the last of the bottle we had the first time I made them and didn’t expect to be able to find it at any of the local liquor stores, so I improvised. Limoncello is yummy, though, especially during the summer.) I’ve never used biscotti for the crust, as I didn’t have any in the house either time, but vanilla wafers work well, and ginger cookies work even better. It sounds kind of weird, but the flavor really blends well with the lemony cheesecake.

The limoncello results in a creamier consistency, and the plain juice makes them cakier, so it might just depend on how you prefer your cheesecake. I like it both ways, so I found them equally good. Don’t be alarmed if the batter looks like it’s curdling after you add the juice, though. It comes out fine.

After seeing Food Network’s Chefography on Sandra Lee, I feel like she’s been placed squarely off limits for ridicule or criticism. As Thelma Ritter’s Birdie said in All About Eve, “What a story! Everything but the bloodhounds snappin’ at her rear end.” (Great. Now I’m hearing Bette Davis’s Margo issuing her rejoinder about third-rate vaudevillians.)

Last night’s look at Nigella Lawson only confirmed my opinion that she’s an international treasure. I’m a little puzzled about the vintage of episodes of her show that airs on Sundays. The bio seemed to indicate that she was producing new episodes for Food Network, but I’d be willing to swear that they’d aired previously on a different network. Maybe she’s repurposed some recipes and menus from old shows and used measurements familiar to U.S. audiences (cups instead of grams and the like) instead of starting from… well… scratch. I don’t really care, because I love her and would happily watch her make instant oatmeal in the microwave.

I’d love to see a Chefography on Alton Brown, who is probably the only Food Network male I want to know more about. (I already feel like I know too much about Emeril Lagasse and Mario Batali, and the less I know about Bobby Flay, the better.)

Anyway, there’s a Chefography marathon on Sunday, though Food Network’s web site is so difficult to navigate and slow to load that I can’t be bothered to find out who’s on the schedule.