The so-called farm-to-table trend in dining is getting a lot of play lately amongst home cooks and big city restaurants around the country. But to many Mainers it’s the way life should be. The draw is this: even the simplest preparations taste wildly wonderful when you use the best, freshest ingredients.

Natural and organic farming has had a stronghold in Maine for years, and the locally coined phrase, “field to fork” is part of the Maine vocabulary. Farmer’s markets have grown by leaps and bounds, drawing local crowds who sift among the stalls as carefully as inspecting rare coins. These cooks just won’t settle for anything less than locally grown.

In Maine’s finer restaurants, most chefs rely on local components. Fore Street, a very strong proponent of locally raised, has pickers covering the state looking for everything from wild mushrooms to garlic shoots. Arrows has its own vegetable gardens. And local producers are in hot demand supplying farm-raised meats, locally caught fish and unadulterated dairy products to their faithful followers.

Typical menu items read like testaments to field and stream: Stonington Halibut, at Blue Hill’s Arborvine; Snell Farm heirloom Beets at Five-Fifty-Five in Portland; Ells Farm lamb at Rockland’s Primo. At Cleonice Bistro in Ellsworth and Cinque Terre in Portland, much of their produce and meats come from their own farms.

Recent dinners I experienced, for example, at Primo and Fore Street were so spectacular because most every dish offered intense flavors from local ingredients that were superbly prepared.

That said, I was thrilled to be in Maine often over the summer and fall, to take delight in all the wonderful dining forays and food finds. Though I spend the rest of my time in New York and Eastern Long Island, what’s available there, surprisingly doesn’t compare to Maine provender.

Especially Eastern Long Island, aka the Hamptons, long known as an agricultural Mecca, has lost much of its charm and appeal as a farming area to the reconstitution of otherwise fertile farm fields into grounds for the dreaded McMansions.

Indeed there are a few farming families left in the Hamptons, many who’ve grown rich from selling off their land for millions of dollars but who love to keep family farming traditions alive. The produce is good but compared to Maine provisions it doesn’t hold sway.

That is not to say that East Enders are starving, but the culinary scene is sadly less remarkable. And whenever I go out to dine or putter around the various roadside farm stands I’m a little less thrilled.

There are some bright spots. The area known as the North Fork has surpassed Eastern Long Island’s South Fork as a culinary leader due in part to the steady development of the wine industry there, which has allowed farmers to keep their farming traditions thriving economically.

The wines are fabulous, which has spurred the growth of very good dining options, too, led by inventive chefs taking advantage of the area that’s stocked with great farming products and regional wines. It’s a perfect combination.

Yet, what’s missing from many of these menus is a complete line up of all the food derived locally. There’s no such animal as local meats on menus, save for ducks or chickens from nearby farms. And forget about getting local dairy products. There aren’t any. Recently, however, several farmers have been making decent entries into cheese making. Mecox Bay Dairy in Water Mill on the South Fork has a small herd of dairy cows and is making some compelling cheeses. Catapano Farms on the North Fork has a good flock of sheep for their sheep’s milk cheese.

Here, at least, Maine leads the pack in locally grown food. For me it’s made me something of a farmer’s market junkie.

The obsessive part of it is that it’s not unusual for me to go from stall to stall at the markets, buying up everything that looks good as I plan menus—or the fantasy of them-- which I’m embarrassed to say often don’t get prepared. That the vegetable crispers in my refrigerator are stuffed with near rotting vegetables occurs more than it should, and it’s an outrageous waste.

Confession aside, during my last three trips to Maine I was like the kid in the candy shop, enjoying as many farmers’ markets as I could visit.

While in the Mid Coast I stopped at one of my favorite stands in Tenant’s Harbor, the Harborside Market on Route 131 just before Martinsville. There I stock up on their wonderful jams, jellies, relishes and pickles. The home made pies and cakes are terrific as is a new addition, homemade baked beans and buttermilk biscuits ready for the Saturday night supper.

At Beth’s in the hills of Warren (Western Road of Rt 90, 273-3695), the market is amazing. She grows strawberries up to November, her own special breed that thrive in greenhouses and grown in soil. When I was there in late September it looked like the June berry season. The berries were big, sweet and delicious.

Another favorite market is in Camden. Alas I missed it during my last trip but was able to attend the Thursday morning Rockland market. That market has grown tremendously over the years; it was always second fiddle to the nearby Camden venture. But as more and more people live in the Mid Coast year-round, most of the markets thrive.

At the Rockland market were beautiful displays of organic vegetables and flowers and baked goods. But what always interest me are the products from the small farms that sell their farm-raised beef, pork, lamb and poultry products.

The Terra Optima Farm (Gurney Town Road, Appleton, 785-3118) is at the Rockland market selling their farm raised pork. Their pigs are pastured in the woods where they freely feed on all types of vegetation. They also raise beef. I bought several of their roasts, chops, smoked hocks and excellent bacon.

I asked them for advice about where to get farm-raised lamb and they suggested that I try Guini Ridge Farm in Union ( 1353 North Union Road, 785-2978)

I went there the next day. It’s not hard to find since the little wooly darlings graze along the roadside meadow as you approach the farm; it doesn’t make the notion any easier to dip into the farm’s freezer to pick up the evening’s roast.

I stocked up on two racks of lamb, one leg and they also raise chickens so I picked out a big 8-pound roaster. So far I’ve prepared the racks, and they were wonderful: rich with a wild, earthy grassy sublime flavor. The meat was incredibly tender too.

Back in New York, two giant coolers unloaded, one of the first items I prepared was the giant chicken from Guini Ridge Farms. My general roasting methods is to stuff the cavity with a whole lemon, pricked all over, insert slivers of garlic and sprigs of tarragon under the breast skin and rub butter all over the bird and generously seasoned with salt and pepper. Cooked in a hot oven it was done in about 90 minutes. The flavors were intense, and the breast meat carved like turkey. The purity of flavor, almost gamey, was outstanding. The entire meal in fact—cream of yellow carrot soup (Sumner Valley Farm), baked cabbage and cauliflower (bought locally in East Hampton) in a light cheese sauce and tiny local white sweet potatoes—was so good because everything was fresh, organic and beautifully harvested.. It was hardly a fancy meal but rather one that was based on the best ingredients you can get.

Another food passion of mine is unpasteurized cream and milk, or at the very least pasteurized cream sold in the bottles and made from organically raised cows. My first flight is to make vanilla ice cream with these stellar ingredients. It really makes a difference. Note that a time-saving method in making the ice cream is instead of scraping the seeds out of the vanilla pod—annoying and messy—put the bean and sugar into a small food processor and process. Use this mixture when you make the ice cream custard and then strain when done to remove large chunks of the bean while retaining the seeds.

Good organic dairy products are not hard to find in Maine. Whole Foods carries Caldwell Farms cream in quart sizes and it’s very good, as well as wholesome dairy products from Nezincot farm in Turner.

Nezincot is a wonderful working farm open to the public. The farm store is loaded with homemade prepared, canned and jarred foods, breads, pastries, meats, dairy (the best cottage cheese), and the adjacent café bustles with hearty homemade offerings.

But on one of my recent outings down east this summer I came across a roadside stand called Morgan Hill near East Blue Hill.

Housed under a sort of lean-to the old refrigerator was loaded with good stuff. And there was the beloved cream, butter and other dairy products.

I bought a bottle of the cream, which came from Gravelwood Farm (Gravelwood Farm Lane, Blue Hill, 374-2702), which is just down the road.

Very rich, thick, with that slight yellow tinge which comes from the type of dairy cows they raise, it was one of the best creams I’ve had..

On my next trip I made a point of visiting the farm to get more of that luscious cream. Unpasteurized cream doesn’t last much more than 10 to 12 days if it’s been processed through a separator. When I arrived at the farm they informed me that the only cream they had was skimmed off the top with a 4-day shelf life. But their homemade butter was available, which was a great consolation. The butter had incredible texture and taste.

Other farm-raised products there included their excellent beef. I chose two humongous porterhouse steaks. They warned me that they were very expensive.

What they presented were two steaks, each about 2 ½ inches thick, weighing over six pounds. At $60 it didn’t seem outrageous. A good steak in a New York restaurant is generally $50.

Most farmers’ markets in Maine stay open until mid to late October. Portlander’s are lucky, however, to have places like the Whole Foods markets to get good vegetables or other such establishments as Rosemont and Royal River Foods for farm fresh organic ingredients.. For meat and dairy, Springbrook Farm on Greely Road in Cumberland is open year round and sells their own pork, beef and Thanksgiving turkeys.

Ultimately many of the restaurants in Maine are real contenders for world-class dining, based in part on their use of stellar local ingredients.. And I look forward to visiting as many as I can during my short stays. I haven’t tried Bresca yet in Portland or the new Natalie’s in Camden. I’ll be in Stonington later in the month and will visit my old favorite, the Fisherman’s Friend for their peerless Maine cooking. Though off the beaten track, the Cleonice Mediterranean Bistro is another worthwhile stop.

While I’ve visited some of my old Portland favorites recently—Caiola’s, Fore Street, Five Fifty Five--I’ll get to the rest of the group as time allows, where at the very least the outcome is usually “better than not bad.”

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