Sara Lee

So close and yet so far. That could be the theme for the Cafe D'Italia, an unpretentious carryout that is separated only by President Street from the savory pleasures of Little Italy. The cafe sits in the ground floor of Scarlett Place and has a few tables inside and a few more on a nice brick patio with a distant view of the harbor. With a location like this, it's natural to expect a little gem of a lunch counter where homemade dishes and subs served on crusty breads draw a daily crowd.

A night to remember is what Beth Goldsmith, chairwoman of the Hopkins Weizmann Research Exchange program, hopes "A Celebration of Achievement" will be on Sept. 11. How can it miss? Tony Randall has signed on as the master of ceremonies and even Sara Lee (of the desserts!) Schupf will be there in her capacity as chair of the American Committee for the Weizmann Institute, to present a special award to this year's guest of honor, Hopkins prez William C. Richardson.Last year's honorees, Dr. Marc Gertner and his wife, Nancy, an attorney, are also working on the Sunday evening event at the Peabody.

Columbia-based U.S. Foodservice said yesterday that it will purchase PYA/Monarch, the leading food-service distributor in the Southeast, for $1.57 billion in cash. The acquisition will reunite two companies that were divided in 1989 after a leveraged buyout of a Sara Lee Corp. subsidiary, creating U.S. Foodservice. In April, U.S. Foodservice was bought by Dutch supermarket giant Royal Ahold NV for $3.6 billion. Analysts said the deal will strengthen U.S. Foodservice's standing as the second-largest food distributor in the nation and boost food service sales for Royal Ahold, which are expected to exceed $12 billion next year.

Emily Senatore from Kodak, Tenn., was looking for a recipe for making a cheesecake similar to the one made by Sara Lee and sold in supermarkets. She says that the light and creamy dessert is no longer to be found in the freezer section of her market and she would like to be able to make it at home. Darla Cole from Brooklyn, in South Baltimore, sent in a recipe for cheesecake that she calls a Sara Lee clone. I remember fondly the cheesecake made by Sara Lee, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that Cole's simple and quick recipe produced something very close in taste and appearance to the original.

Xerox Corp., whose sales have dropped eight quarters in a row, had a first-quarter loss because of costs to depart the inkjet printer business, job cuts and a decline in demand for color copiers. The loss was $64 million, or 9 cents a share, compared with net income of $202 million, or 25 cents, a year earlier. Xerox said the figures are preliminary because it's restating results for the past five years as part of a settlement of allegations that it inflated revenue to bolster earnings.

When Franco Harris bought Parks Sausage Co., the former football star said it would be tough to turn around the 46-year-old Baltimore company.Six months after the purchase, it turns out he was right.Two weeks ago, Parks lost a contract to make frankfurters for an Eastern Shore company, laid off 32 workers -- about one-third the work force -- and said it was having a new line of products manufactured not at its plant but by Jimmy Dean, a subsidiary of Chicago-based Sara Lee Corp."We're still losing money," Harris said.

On December 13, 2005, FADRA L. GREENE (nee Le Blanc), beloved wife of the late Melvin R. Greene, Jr.; devoted mother of Melvin R. Greene III of Eagan, MN, Richard H. Greene of Richmond, VA and the late Fadra Lee Mc Guire; dear sister of Sara Lee Houston; also survived by five grandchildren and three great grandchildren. The family will receive friends in the Towson United Methodist Church on Saturday, from 1 to 2 P.M., at which time a service will be held. Interment Druid Ridge Cemetery.

Item: Sara Lee Bites What you get: 10 single-serving bites Cost: About $4.50 Nutritional content: Carrot Cake - 80 calories, 5 grams fat, 3.5 grams saturated fat, 35 milligrams sodium, 7 grams carbohydrate, 5 grams sugars; Triple Chocolate Fudge - 90 calories, 4 grams fat, 2 grams saturated fat, 12 grams carbohydrate, 8 grams sugars Preparation time: Open and eat Review: Can you get satisfaction from just one bite of cake? I never answered yes until I tried Sara Lee Bites. These petit-four-style cakes are sweet and satisfying.

To make sure consumers can have their cake and diet too, major baking companies are offering fat-reduced or even fat-free baked goods.Faring well in an informal taste test were Entenmann's new fat-free products, expanding upon the cholesterol-free line that the company introduced two years ago.Entenmann's says it uses non-fat milk and egg whites in this line of 15 baked goods, which range from $2.59 to $3.29. Packaging includes nutrition labeling but doesn't give diet exchanges (a breakdown of nutrition contents for use in diabetic eating and weight-loss programs)