I was once myself a dedicated summer-person-in-residence somewhere between Wainscott and Amagansett every year. And later, I evolved into a reasonably well-behaved houseguest. Till other people’s adored grandchildren multiplied. In recent summers I fade into urban shadow. But early this July, my friend, Dan’s Papers senior editor Stacy Dermont, invited me to Dan’s “Taste of Two Forks.” Stacy’s husband is the organist at Christ Episcopal Church and they live next door. She found that the Reverend Karen Campbell and her husband Graham were willing to put me up in their guest room for the weekend.  Mornings she came by with just-picked raspberries for my cereal.

“I eat local, because I can,” says Dan Koontz, the organist at Christ Episcopal Church in Sag Harbor.

          “I can eat farm to table from my own backyard,” Stacy boasted as she and the Campbells gardened with a fierce calling in their expanding field of dreams. I did my usual. I ate. I already had an unexpected invitation to spend the rest of the week with a grandchild-free friend just settled in East Hampton. When I moved on, I carried a basket with raspberry rhubarb jam and sweet zucchini pickles, harvested and brewed that afternoon by Stacy.

Ready–to-go sandwiches are just the beginning of their healthy, rustic, farm-to-table scheme.

          Alas, there are not enough places to sit, just a few tables, a scarcity of chairs. A gallant gentleman spied my consternation and pretended to be finished with his lunch. That forced his wife to stand up too. I was able to set up a container of cole slaw and another of Brussels sprouts along with my tuna sandwich. And my friend’s son Bo, who had been wrestling mulch in the garden all morning, could focus on his own personal mulch: a reasonably good vegetarian pizza. 184 Division Street. Sag Harbor 631 725 4433.

Here’s a collection of just baked pies in Sag’s Saturday market. The tomato pie is very tempting.

          “I guess when they told Dan’s Papers they were open seven days a week, they didn’t mean Monday,” my pal said.  “Want to go to the American Hotel?”

          “Take me somewhere I’ve never been,” I said.

          “Everyone loves Sen,” she offered. 

          “I’m not in that mood.”

Vegetables displayed as if there were jewels. If you don’t have time to grow them, you can buy them.

          This is not the Sag Harbor we used to know. Well, the dusty old movie theater is still there and the variety store, but the stationery store is gone. Gradually, upscale clothing stores with multiple outlets and eateries are taking over. The Paradise where we used to share a whopping burger before the movie is now Doppio East, with branches in Manhattan, Greenwich, and Huntington. Fertile clans with eager progeny stampede LTBurger. The old Bulova Watch factory has been converted into multi-million dollar condos that are selling fast.

          “They use the fish doo-doo to fertilize the hydroponic garden,” she confided.

My pal Stacy and I share the crispy calamri and zucchini with chipotle aioli at Page.

          A waiter dropped two big squares of whole wheat focaccia and a little dish of olive oil on every table, then dashed away when we hadn’t decided what to order. We had to flag him down as tables filled in his vast turf.  I couldn’t help but think about fish doo-doo when my corn soup arrived with a scattering of micro greens. It was very cold and lacked a fresh sweet corn intensity. Stacy seemed content with her endive, arugula and golden beet salad but then she is an editor, a diplomat, not a critic.   

          The crispy calamari with batter sliding off thick sticks of zucchini was not bad, not good, just run of the mill, though a not-very-heated chipotle aioli helped. We each had one half of the heapingly stuffed lobster BLT with avocado and surprisingly good fries. We agreed that excellent bacon almost made up for a certain fatigue of the mashed lobster.

Then we split the big $25 over-stuffed lobster BLT on a brioche bun with very good hand-cut fries.

           We studied desserts. I always do, but I was annoyed that there was nothing on the sweets list -- lemon pot de crème, classic tiramasu, sticky toffee date cake -- that you couldn’t have in the dead of winter, except strawberry-rhubarb and black berry sorbets. (I see this too often in the brief weeks of great stone fruits.) 63 Main Street 631 725 1810

Take one look at this cheese spread with carrots and cucumber strips and decide if it’s for you.

          I was curious about Baron’s Cove Restaurant in the waterside resort everyone is talking about this year. It’s been beautified along the harbor by a company with success in New Jersey, hoping to charm locals as well as real estate-less tourists. We dared to try for Sunday lunch without a reservation. Surprisingly, only the patio and terrace tables were taken. We were alone inside at a corner table with cobalt water glasses and a view of the maritime traffic.

You might not come to Baron’s Cove for a brilliant dinner but you can get a very good bacon burger.

          I’m not sure what got into me. Maybe I thought I could revive some innocent childhood joy by ordering the cheese plate -- bright orange cheese spread with carrots, cucumber strips and tight little ovals of dried-out bread to dip in it. It was childhood without joy. My friends were not amused. The menu didn’t promise bacon. But a blue cheese iceberg wedge without bacon is deeply disappointing -- like the blind date that doesn’t show.

Baron Cove’s dining room is already full and a little warm even before the sunset. The later crowd is younger.

          The halibut fishwich was tough and dry, and one spoonful of the watered down Sag Harbor fish stew suggested the chef could not possibly be in the kitchen. Clearly, he’d left the dishwasher to do lunch.  Still, my almost-rare burger with a confetti of bacon cubes planted in gruyere melt on a decent roll was totally respectable. And I couldn’t stop eating the fries. I promised to try again in the evening when a full team would be at the range.