By Wini Moranville

I love the pairing of a cool and creamy dessert with an intensely bright, sweet-tart fruit sauce. The combo of richness and refreshment never fails to thrill, especially on warm summer nights.

To this end, one of my favorite things to make is what’s known as a fruit coulis — a French sauce that’s usually made simply with pureed fruit, sugar and maybe some lemon juice to keep it bright and colorful. The pureed mixture is strained for a pure, intense and entirely elegant dessert condiment.

Commercial coulis are hard to find, but I spotted some jars of it at World Market. While Daniel Boudet’s versions are labeled as "purees," they're definitely what the French would call a coulis (in fact, that’s how the bottles are labeled in France). Choose from raspberry, blueberry and strawberry; they’re especially amazing on panna cotta, vanilla cheesecake and ice cream. 

Here’s the catch: World Market’s stock varies, which means something you fall in love with one week can be gone the next. Never fear — if they run out of this luscious sauce, enjoy my recipe. In fact, you can make up a homemade version in much less time than it takes to drive to the West Des Moines store.

Raspberry Coulis

1 (12-ounce) package frozen unsweetened raspberries, thawed
1/3 cup sugar
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

Put the raspberries, sugar and balsamic vinegar in a blender or food processor. Blend until smooth. Press the sauce through a fine-mesh sieve into a bowl to remove any seeds; discard the seeds. Cover and refrigerate the coulis until ready to serve. Makes about 1 1/4 cups.

Wini Moranville writes about food, wine and dining for dsm magazine and dsmWeekly. Follow her on Facebook at All Things Food–DSM.

So we're guessing this may be amusing. Consider the critics' reviews of "The Play That Goes Wrong," coming to the Des Moines Civic Center June 25-30:

Cedar Falls artist Noah Doely will discuss his work in a public lecture at 6 p.m. Friday, June 21, at the Des Moines Art Center. A reception with the artist follows in the lobby of the museum.

Doely's distinctive work focuses on photography, he says, "because of its complicated relationship to truth and verifiability and its paradoxical ability to evoke both trust and skepticism." Keeping this in mind, the artist creates pictures that are purposefully deceptive and blur the distinction between reality and illusion.

For example, this exhibit features photographs that look like caves illuminated by rays of light. But in fact, they show sections of a diorama Doely constructed, lit from a single source and photographed using a pinhole camera. From these mysterious images Doely asks that we become active inquisitors, questioning authenticity and what’s presented before us.

Doely is an associate professor of photography at the University of Northern Iowa.

Work by world-renowned muralists and street artists is featured in an exhibition opening Friday, June 21, at Moberg Gallery. Artist Jason Woodside has curated the show, which includes his own art as well as works by Swoon, D*Face, Ruben Sanchez, Adele Renault, Pref ID, ItsALiving, Adam Lucas, Maser, and Buff Monster.
The exhibit, which continues through July 27, opens with a reception from 5 to 9 p.m. Friday.