Ewan and I are grieving. A few days after moving into town, we found a fantastic Lao-Thai deli called Rising Sons at the University end of State St. The people there mainly cook Lao food because from what I can tell none of them are Thai. Well, none of them except Halen. The first time we went to Rising Sons, we asked our waiter what he liked the best. The day-time waiter is a white, probably student, type of person. He lowered his voice to inform us that the Massaman was his favorite, but that the owners didn’t want him to reccomend it to anyone anymore. We realized later on that this is because it’s the only truly Thai thing on the menu, and they don’t like cooking Thai food. On our next visit (being ignorant of the nationalities of the owners) we asked if they could make us Panang. This is by far my favorite Thai curry, and is very important to my general wellbeing. Halen was cooking that day, and he said he could make it anytime, no problem. He could also make Pad Prik King and any number of other things. We were in heaven. That day he brought us Panang as well as a special soup he made just for us and some dipping sauces for our sticky rice. Since Halen worked most days and evenings, we never realized that we were amusing the owners so much by coming to order strange Thai dishes. Then last week we got the bombshell. Halen was leaving. He told us he had to go to Iowa to help his sister set up a Thai restaurant, and he would be gone at the end of the week. So we came back dutifully every day that week, and he served us the most wonderful food. I don’t even know what some of it was, but it was DELICIOUS. Our last night he made us a red curry that had pineapple in it, a green curry, and some kind of sweet sticky rice served with a warm sweet squashy soupy substance that was delectable. We have contented ourselves with leftovers, but now even those are running out. So we are grieving our loss of Halen. I hope the people of Iowa appreciate him for the master he is.