At long last, Roma Sausage, Baltimore's best Italian sausage, has made it to the meat cases at Giant. This was confirmed by Dean Paciocco, the owner of the sausage-maker. "I am pleased to inform you that Roma Sausage is now in all 181 local Giant stores and I feel that your columns have been very helpful with that development." OK, well, I can't take too much credit for this. Maybe consumers figured out that the so-called Italian sausage Giant has been selling (Johnsville? Are you kidding me?) was not so great. Maybe Giant execs are taking the buy-local thing seriously and, if so, good for them.

The growth for Roma means the sausage-maker had to move out of the little Highlandtown corner rowhouse it occupied for decades. The company moved to a new space in the old Crosse and Blackwell building at 6801 Eastern Avenue.

Paciocco sent me an e-mail boasting about Roma's Chesapeake sausage. "We are combining Phillips Seafood seasoning along with my own blend of spices and making a signature sausage exclusively for Giant and calling it Chesapeake sausage with both company logos on the product."

I sampled this recently and . . . well, let's just say I won't make that mistake again. (It's just not my thing.) I'll settle for what Roma does best -- Italian sweet or mild, browned in a little olive oil, then left in a simmering tomato sauce for about two days and served with linguini. Buona fortuna!