BITES

Cheese on Line

New England Cheesemaking Supply Co. has a Web site where you can buy all that wonderful paraphernalia for making cheese at home: presses, rennets, special bacteria for making blue cheese or producing the holes in Swiss, yogurt and kefir cultures and the rest. Besides browsing its catalog, you can download recipes or check out the Curds & Whey Bulletin Board. (If, on the other hand, you’re not a browser or downloader, you can still order the catalog by snail mail for $1: New England Cheesemaking Supply Co., P.O. Box 85, Main Street, Ashfield, MA 01330.) That Web address: https://www.cheesemaking.com

Cook on the Bright Side

It’s getting to be that time of year again; Frank Capra’s “It’s a Wonderful Life” will soon be back on TV. If you just can’t wait, here’s “Zuzu Bailey’s ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ Cookbook: Recipes and Anecdotes Inspired by America’s Favorite Movie,” by Karolyn Grimes and Franklin Dohanyos (Birch Land Press), Grimes being the actress who played George Bailey’s youngest daughter in the movie 50 years ago.

The book is a mine of IAWL anecdotes and trivia--and, needless to say, recipes named Clarence Oddbody’s Heavenly Mulled Wine, Zuzu My Little Gingersnap Cookies and Creamed Capra Corn.

“Cooking With Prozac,” by Robin Cohn (Eggman Publishing, Nashville, Tenn.), is another cheerful cookbook: the tale of how a young law school graduate overcame clinical depression through Prozac therapy and rediscovered a passion for cooking.

And a sense of humor, evidently. The book focuses on soups and desserts because Cohn doesn’t eat meat (at least from “anything that had eyelashes”), hors d’oeuvres “are simply too time-consuming” and vegetables remind her too much her former self.