My Yorkshire pudding makes women swoon.

During the colder months of the year, which in Calgary is about eight of them, I roast up a pretty big dinner on most Saturday nights. During the other four months of the year I BBQ a big dinner on Saturday nights because when it’s warm outside I don’t want to be turning the oven on for a couple of hours to roast the carcass of some poor critter who valiantly gave up her life so my family could develop a food coma.

Due to popular demand, when I roast up a prime rib, a stuffed chicken, or a leg of lamb I end up making a pan full of Yorkies as well. When my wife eats them she makes pleasant noises. I like hearing those noises.

However, health nut that I am, I decided to mess with something that the rest of my family did not consider broken. Before I proceed, allow me to give you my recipe. It’s not exactly a state secret:

• 1 cup of white flour
• 2 eggs
• A pinch of salt
• Half a cup of water
• Half a cup of milk
• Olive oil

Select a metal tray with a dozen cup holes and pour enough olive oil into each that doesn’t quite cover the bottom. As whatever critter in the oven is nearing completion I crank the heat to 425. Pull out the critter, and throw in the tray with the oil in it.

Turn on the stove-top fan. Either that, or open some doors and be prepared to push the button on your smoke detector.

Let the oil in the pan heat up for about four minutes. This is critical or you’ll end up with hockey pucks instead of puffy Yorkies. Puffy is good. Pucky is bad.

Take the above ingredients and throw them all in together. I don’t go for that mixing dry and wet ingredients separately bullshit. Just whisk the bejesus out of it.

Take the heated pan out and pour even portions into the 12 holders as fast as you can without making a mess of things (filling each cup about one-third should do it). The idea is not to let the pan cool down. Throw back in the oven for about 14-15 minutes. Try not to crash around too much during this time.

This will give you a dozen perfect gravy receptacles. Speaking of gravy, throw an ounce of Drambuie into that shit. Trust me on this.

Okay, let’s talk about how I fucked this up.

I don’t like white flour. I don’t like processed anything. Everything I buy is always whole wheat / whole grain. Bagels, bread, pasta, hamburger buns – you name it. My family is fine with this. Whole wheat / whole grain has far more nutrients than white flour, it satisfies hunger better because the nutrients give the body what it needs to function properly and this dulls your hormonal hunger response, and it is also lower in calories. In other words, whole wheat flour = good / white flour = tool of Satan.

So I decided to make Yorkies out of whole wheat flour instead one day. Being that white flour has 50% more calories than whole wheat it was going to help cut down on my total caloric intake during Saturday gluttony, and they would fill me up better too, not to mention just be healthier all around. I was stoked to try this out.

I thought they tasted just fine. My family did not. I almost had a rebellion on my hands. Most importantly, my wife didn’t make the nice noises that I like.

“Fine,” I told them. “I’ll go back to feeding you poison.”

“Good,” they all said.

Then my son complained about the wild rice in the homemade stuffing.

“Too bad,” I said. “The rice stays.”

“I like grandma’s stuffing better,” he complained, referring to the out-of-a box Stove Top crap that she makes.

I told him to bite me.