by Betsy Andrews
At a dinner at Eleven Madison Park recently, the swellegant Swiss watchmaker, Blancpain, a 278-year-old family-run company, honored chef Daniel Humm. The watchmakers presented Humm with a gorgeous timepiece, and the chef cooked a gorgeous dinner to match: a torchon of foie gras with maple, apple, and walnut; citrus-sauced poached lobster; duck roasted with kale and plums; a hazelnut mille feiulle with espresso ice cream and hazelnut brittle, and more. As meals do at Eleven Madison Park, the whole thing started with a visit to the kitchen, where we were treated to a cocktail called the Widow's Kiss, a late 19th-century mixture of calvados, Angostura bitters, and the liqueurs Benedictine and chartreuse. Wielding liquid nitrogen and an iSi canister-a nitrous oxide-propelled dispenser normally used for whipped cream-Eleven Madison Park's Brian Wilkerson turned the drink inside out and upside down. He plunked diced apples that had been pressed in Angostura bitters into a syrup made from the anise-accented chartreuse. He blasted the Benedictine through the iSi canister, forming half-moons of boozy, herbal foam and then froze it, along with a shot of applejack, that American-made apple brandy, with liquid nitrogen, and poured the two into the glass with the apples and syrup. A Widow's Kiss has never been so aptly named; vapor swirled around the bittersweet potion like it was a witch's brew. -Betsy Andrews
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