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THIS IS ONE OF MY LOCAL DELIS, below. It’s the Amagansett Farmers Market, owned by Eli Zabar of Upper West Side fame. The market is miniaturized for the off-season from a full-service grocery and produce store to a single cozy room stocking basics like bread, soups, and seasonal vegs from area farmers.

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I stopped in the other day for a cup of mushroom barley and met the two young women in the photo, Katie Baldwin (at left) and Amanda Morrow. They’re organic farmer chicks in their 20s, who’ve leased eight acres behind the market from the Peconic Land Trust and have just finished their first growing season (well, not quite finished — they’re still harvesting a few root vegetables). They call their business Amber Waves, and they grow 31 varieties of tomatoes, but their main interest is in bringing wheat farming back to Long Island after an absence of some 60 years.

Later I noticed a “For Rent” sign in front of this classic cedar-shingled house, below, which I have to guess from the Greek Revival doorway (though that could have been added later) is early 19th century.

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Regrettably, like so many old houses, it’s right smack on Main Street (aka Montauk Highway or Route 27). In the old days, that must have made sense, to get the carts and horses more easily out onto the unpaved dirt road, particularly when it snowed. Now too many trucks whizz by. But the backyard has a barn and outbuildings, and the house is immaculately restored inside (I peeked in the windows), with gleaming wood floors and fireplaces in every room.

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