I was watching the Food Network the other day, and a woman on Chopped had forgotten to trim her fish fillets. “I forgot to cut the bellies off” is what she said, actually. Because she had a Band-Aid on her thumb, she couldn’t touch the fillets while she sliced them; a pair of metal tongs acted as an anchor while she hacked at them with a small knife. The judges watched, lost in their disappointment. She was ripping the fish. I think one of the judges said she was “tearing at the flesh,” but maybe I misheard. I was distracted because the cameras wouldn’t let me see the source of the scandal. Food Network shows us pigs’ heads boiled and expurgated, but they won’t let me get a good look at a Band-Aid.

That this woman had something wrong with her thumb is strange and remarkable. Hands on cooking shows aren’t supposed to make you feel like you don’t want to eat what they’re touching. The hands of people who cook on TV are photographed as often as their faces, if not more, and they’re clean, proportional, maybe even beautiful if the chef’s brand calls for that. When you’re staring at a person’s fingers rubbing salt on a cut of meat, you notice rings. You notice wrinkles. The light would pick up a hangnail. The shooting of the hands is intimate, and it’s soothing if it’s done right.

I don’t know how they do it. My hands are filthy basically all the time. Lotion has not been a priority for me, at least not consistently. One of my New Year’s resolutions was to get more manicures, to take better care of my hands. It’s hard to do this; that’s why it’s a resolution. I think if I went on TV to cook—a large ask—I would have to know how to keep the skin on my hands beautiful. And I’d have to know exactly how beautiful I needed my hands to be. I can’t imagine the list of chemicals that would go into making my hands look good enough to be touching food on TV.

When I was very young and waiting in a hard chair in a doctor’s office, I read in a magazine that our hands are the first things to age. I later saw this rumor confirmed by Madonna, whose body and face either haven’t aged or have done something entirely new, something that bodies couldn’t do before Madonna turned forty. Around her fiftieth birthday, tabloids started zooming in on Madonna’s hands in photographs, revealing incredible wrinkles and spots. It was creepy, but also chastening—a cautionary tale. Even Madonna couldn’t escape when she needed to.

Aged beauty is a very hard thing to accomplish. Martha’s done it. Ina, too. Think about Paula Deen’s hands, which are celebrated on the screen every time they touch something. Hers are the platonic ideal of grandma hands, the soft touch that whisks eggs in your dreams. Paula’s hands are older but still gorgeous, preserved, and allowed to change shape only enough to make you comfortable, like Blythe Danner’s face or Helen Mirren’s body.

Men are different, as ever. Emeril’s fingers are like pork sausages still in their casings. Mario Batali’s oven-mitt hands look like they’ve been burned a thousand times. But neither of them is even on TV anymore.

Band-Aids aside, my problem with Chopped is basically the same problem I have with most of Guy Fieri’s shows: there’s always a qualifier involved in compliments to those chefs. This is a dive, but its mac and cheese is thrilling. The fish is a little undercooked, but they had only fifteen minutes. You get the idea.

I prefer the shows that are a little less real. I like to watch the hands on these shows. I like to hear a voice, usually female, talking about parsley and preparation, and to know that it’s happening offscreen, the background to something larger, something recurring, something hypnotic like knuckles in dough. It’s relaxing to focus on small movements, on thumbs and palms. These shows depict a “lifestyle,” or something like it. It’s a comfort to be invested in something just barely.