I don’t know about you, but when I travel these days, my itinerary is all about food. As Anthony Bourdain (and so many others before and since) have taught us, you get to know a place by eating its food. But there’s so much great food out there; it’s tough to choose just a few great places to eat. Enter food truck festivals.

The New England Food Truck Festival, scheduled for September 2-3, will feature a variety of trucks from all over New England and the Northeast, and food from around the world, everything from Polish and Indian to Laotian and Mediterranean. The festival can satisfy less adventurous comfort-based culinary tastes, too. Always wanted to try a steamed cheeseburger? Walk 20 feet in that direction. Square donuts? Walk 50 feet over there. All varieties of barbecue and sandwich are represented here, plus a few specialty carts (grilled cheese! WAFFLES!). Here’s a sample of the trucks you’ll find at this food-lover’s weekend.

Away Cafe
A food truck from the Boston area with a lot of range. They’ve got classic fair food in addition to Thai, Cuban, and Italian.

Clyde’s Cupcakes
Sweet bakery treats from New Hampshire. All the cupcakes you could ever want. End of story.

Friskie Fries
Do you want fries with that? Why, yes, you do. Crispy hot fries with a variety of toppings, in fact; all fresh from Rhode Island.

Kettle Girl Popcorn
Kettle corn is that elusive mix of salty and sweet that is mostly irresistible once you’ve had a taste. It is especially irresistible if the kettle corn is from this food truck, from deep in the heart of Connecticut. Go ahead. We dare you to eat just one handful.

Makin’ Jamaican
You may not be able to make it to Jamaica, but you can enjoy some of its tasty treats, thanks to this truck. Rated one of the 10 best food trucks in Massachusetts!

Nora Cupcake
Hailing from Connecticut, Nora has cupcakes for everyone, including vegan and gluten-free options. Who could say no to 50 Shades of Chocolate?

Nom Nom Hut
Want a little kashi katsu, aka pork on a stick? You know you do. This is Japanese food at its best.

Open Season
This Rhode Island truck got game—as in venison chili, bison burgers, elk hot dogs, and wild boar quesadillas. Game on!

Redbean Coffee Roasters
A cup of Redbean is going to help you through this food fest, believe us.

Red’s Street Kitchen
A Rhode Island truck with a passion for street food. Their slider sandos, as they’re called, include Portuguese burgers, a Chimichurri cheesesteak, and the Cubano.

Say Cheese!
The answer to answer to many of life’s conundrums is to say cheese, IMHO. This truck, based in Worcester, Massachusetts, takes the lowly grilled cheese and moves it up several notches. Two options include the wedge (blue cheese crumbles, cheddar, bacon, and tomato) and the picklebac (cheddar, bacon, and dill pickles).

Shuckin’ Truck
You can’t get your seafood any fresher unless you grab it from the sea yourself. The fresh shellfish and fish on this truck are either fished by local fisherman from Point Judith, Rhode Island, or from the Salt Pond Oyster Company.

Spuds Your Way
It’s a meal in a peel as this Connecticut baked-potato wondertruck likes to boast. And they’re not kidding. Their Supreme Baked Potato includes butter, sour cream, bacon, chives, and shredded cheese as well as your choice of steak, grilled chicken, burger, turkey burger, or Buffalo Philly chicken. Phew!

Sultan Kebab
Kebabs, falafel, and baklava are coming to your mouth from this truck that calls Connecticut home.

Ted’s Restaurant
If you haven’t tried a steamed cheeseburger, this is your chance. Ted’s, which also has a restaurant in Meriden, Connecticut, is apparently the only restaurant in the U.S. to solely serve steamed burgers.

Teri-Yummy
If you’re into teriyaki, this truck from Boston has it all—chicken, beef, shrimp, shrimp and chicken, vegetarian—you get the idea.

The Whoopie Wagon
For all of your whoopie-pie needs and desires—and you know you have them. Based in Massachusetts.

Tony’s Square Donuts
This Connecticut truck serves up donuts with more surface area for your munching pleasure. Tony—and his donuts, of course—have been featured on Donut Showdown. He didn’t win, but his unique donuts remain winners here.

Trolley Dog
Their dogs are handmade, all-beef and, apparently, gigantic. What else do you need to know? Based in Natick, Massachusetts.

Zinneken’s
This Boston-based waffle truck is owned by Belgians who decided they needed to bring the authentic, liege-style Belgian waffles of the youth to the U.S. All we can say is, lucky us.

New England Food Truck Festival
$5 per person
Sept. 2-3
Mohegan Sun
Winter Parking Lot
1 Mohegan Sun Boulevard
Uncasville, Connecticut
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The post Food Truckin’ appeared first on Take Magazine.

When the Maine Museum of Photographic Arts opened about seven years ago, co-founder and director Denise Froehlich, who is also a photographer, saw the museum as a way to give Maine photography a presence in the American conversation about art. The current exhibit of work by Meggan Gould, on view through September 30th, is a good example, she says. “The work is about the process and tools used in making photographs,” Froehlich says. “It is modernist in style and really, very smart.”

That’s true of so much of the work on display at MMPA. We emailed Froehlich to find out more about her hopes for the museum—its mission, exhibits, and her thoughts on the future (and present) of photography. Here’s what she had to say.

Denise Froehlich

What was it that inspired you to start MMPA? And why did you choose to open it in Maine?

DF: In 2010, when we launched MMPA, there were only a smattering of idiosyncratic photography collections throughout the state and photographic exhibitions were scant and mostly historically based. People were coming from all over the world to study photography at the ME Photo Workshops and our colleges and were making images here, but contemporary works weren’t being exhibited or collected by local museums. We likened this to plein air/landscape painting in Maine in the 1800s. MMPA decided that we would exhibit and collect contemporary photographic works by Maine artists. Because photography is linked to science and technology, it’s ever shifting in creation and representation. We want to bring the most avant-garde work being made in the state to the public and collectors. Also, the medium is shifting and no longer just flat and two-dimensional. Photographers are reaching forward to contemporary art that bridges the gap between drawing, sculpture, installations, film and projections, and painting. They’re also looking back and creating works with antique processes like daguerreotypes, cyanotypes, etc., by concocting their own emulsions or making camera-less imagery. This is important and needs to be collected.

The MMPA mission notes that the museum seeks to “inspire, engage and educate.” What would you say is the role of photography—as an art and as a tool of documentation—in 2017, when nobody seems to believe anything they see, read, or hear anymore?

DF: Ah, documentation is one way to use the medium. Our government is doing this well; the average person is photographed 75 times a day, and now we are installing facial recognition software into airports. Surveillance is real. Photography, film, and video are only tools like a typewriter or keyboard. It’s up to the artist to make art or communicate an idea to an audience. Form + Content + Context = Art.

How has the art of photography changed since the introduction of the iPhone 10 years ago? Where do you see it heading?

DF: I like to think about the iPhone or camera phone’s popularity and compare it to the Brownie camera that became available in 1900. The Brownie was a cheap, easy-to-use box that would bring the idea of a snapshot to the masses. Because it was inexpensive and readily available, thousands of people used them. Did they make “art” with them? Some did.

What do you think is misunderstood about photography?

DF: Because photography is so linked with in-the-moment technology, people think that anyone can create great art with it. Like painting or sculpture, it requires time, craft and skill, and, most of all, a unique voice and point of view. Look carefully, slowly, and ask yourself, ‘What does this image mean?’ If the intent and content is there and the formal qualities are worked out, and the audience is clear, chances are you’re looking at art.

What would you like to accomplish with MMPA in the next year?

DF: As director, I would like to collaborate with other institutions and bring Maine art to focus in the U.S. We are growing our small collection, and I would love to have exhibitions traveling. Of course, because we are small and recent—we’re in our seventh year—growing our operating budget is also a very real goal, too. Maine photographic artists are creating amazing things that need to be shared with the public. My hope is that we can expand our nonprofit and accomplish more. So far, every year we gain in reach, popularity, and depth of exhibitions.

Denise Froehlich–director, co-founder
Maine Museum of Photographic Arts
Portland, Maine
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Top image: Meggan Gould, Bob’s, November 19, 2012, pigment print, 24 x 30 inches, photo courtesy of Maine Museum of Photographic Arts

The post Keeping Maine in the Game appeared first on Take Magazine.

Some people look at the breadth of our planetary pollution problem—in particular the plastic clogging our oceans and seas—and just throw up their hands. Amy Merli started Trashion Fashion, a Hartford-based program that uses fashion and design to educate communities about the problem of waste. By turning unrecyclable, uncompostable materials into wearable art, Trashion Fashion sends a strong message about what we choose to throw away, and the possible opportunities beyond the garbage bin that exist for items like K-cups.

Merli, whose background is in stage management and dance, launched the idea in 2011. “It was one of those things I saw at a runway show,” she says. “I saw something made from trash and I was like, ‘Oh, that’d be really cool to put that together, but bring it together with dance.’”

Trashion Fashion show, photo ??

Since that first trash-as-fashion show, Trashion has grown throughout Connecticut and expanded into New York and Washington, D.C. Trashion Fashion visits schools and, online, has reached 45 different countries, many of whom have contributed designs to Trashion Fashion shows.

There’s a “nice, growing movement of environmental enthusiasts and activists” in Hartford, Merli says, which is something she loves about the city. Connecticut’s efforts in general to be a green state have kept Merli here since childhood. She grew up in Harwinton, where her mother strictly enforced recycling, and studied dance at the Hartford Conservatory.

Now, she finds herself surrounded by likeminded people with similarly enthusiastic ideas about upcycled trash. “Last year, we had this artist who had been collecting gum wrappers since the ’70s,” Merli says. Other students and artists have used little bits of plastic and styrofoam to create clothing, or old wires and CDs, shower curtains, bubble wrap and, of course, K-cups. One person made a piece out of crotcheted VHS tapes.

Trashion Fashion 2013, Hartford, photo Steve Lashever

Merli encourages her designers to use materials that can’t be recycled. If you glue together and paint a bunch of tissue and newspaper, you’re essentially rendering formerly recyclable material into nonrecyclable material, which is antithetical to the spirit of the show. By focusing on garbage that truly can’t be reused, she says, you start to pay new attention to the little items we throw away but don’t think about.

“People who come to the show or the designers who are involved, as they start to investigate their lives, they’re not passengers,” Merli says. “They’re active members of life and society. And they’re like, ‘Oh, yeah, there’s these little doohickeys that I get at Home Depot and can’t throw away.’ Thinking of trash this way is “an investigation of your whole world,” she says. “I’m giving people trash OCD.”

Trashion Fashion, photo Steve Lashever

That’s the objective of Trashion Fashion: to start a dialogue. “This is a a platform for something we all connect with,” Merli says. “We want to have that conversation. ‘Wow, that’s made from what?’ And it’s like, ‘Let’s talk about this. Let’s go into it.’ We use fashion to make a statement. To actually make change.”

Trashion Fashion
Hartford, Connecticut
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Top image by Sabato Visconti

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