Scenes from the Austin City Limits Music Festival

3 days
8 stages
130+ bands
75,000 festival-goers

During LCD Soundsystem's exuberant set, as I bounced happily with thousands of my new best friends and fellow music lovers, there came a moment. An emotion. Something I hadn't felt in a long, long time. Do you remember that feeling? When you were younger? Maybe when you were just falling in love. Or when you were driving a convertible with the top down, and the road wheeled away before you like infinite possibility.  Or when you lay on the grass on a sunny day studying for an exam and stopped to simply watch the clouds float past.

Love. Joy. Connectedness. Transcendence.

And that's what music gives us. What music festivals give us. A connection with others. A shared joy. Something so simple and so profound and so precious in this time of divisiveness, discord, and disconnect.

So here are some scenes from this year's Austin City Limits Music Festival. Sorry they were taken with my little camera. No toting along the big gear this year.

Early in the afternoon at Zilker Park as the crowds begin to arrive.

Self-explanatory, no?

Broken Bells, the band composed of Danger Mouse and the lead singer of The Shins, James Mercer

Crowds are growing.

A rare self-portrait. The shadow. Not the dude.

The sun sets on the second day of ACL.

Muse put on one hell of a light show...

My favorite band? The National. Matt Berninger in business suit and tie surging through a driving, emotional, beautifully balanced set. Smokin'. Maybe I should imitate Tim, the superfan from San Francisco, and give up this blogger/mom/wife gig to follow the band. They're touring Europe in the next couple of months. Bonus.

Yoohoo!!!

Hi again, y'all!

Where have I been?

I've spent the past few days catching up with old Austin friends and experiencing the fabulosity that is the Austin City Limits Music Festival. My blood still feels like it's thrumming to an insistent, happy beat, and I want to burst into a joyous dance. Which might look a little odd in suburban Boston. Better refrain.

Anyway, it's late. I still need to unpack and figure out what my children need for school tomorrow. More later.

I had an amazing time, but it's good to be home.

P.S. If you love live music, you must experience ACL Music Festival at least once in your life. The 2011 dates have been set, and $50 three-day passes will go on sale very soon. As you can imagine, these passes get snapped up in a blink so keep a sharp eye out if you're interested.

Step on a crack, break your mother's back

If a broken mirror brings seven years of bad luck, how many years does a cracked soapstone countertop bring?

When our countertop was first installed, I noticed fine white lines through the slab. Will told me it was nothing. Just the way soapstone is made.

A couple of weeks later, I noticed this.

Nothing, right? Just a vein?

Sadly, no. It's a crack. From the front of the slab all the way to the back. You can feel it with a nail. At its worst point, it opens up like a little chasm.

The Grand Canyon was not in my design scheme.

I've been through panic. And anger. And anxiety. Now I'm stuck in wait mode for our installer to come back and deliver his verdict. I don't want a brittle countertop that needs to be babied. I don't want a countertop that will crumble in a year or so. I chose soapstone after lots of research because it was considered almost impervious to damage. Yes, it was softer than granite and could be dinged, but I thought I avoided that by choosing a harder variety.

So this is a warning for those of you who're considering soapstone. Our soapstone distributor (now) tells us that harder varieties of soapstone (like Beleza) are particularly prone to cracking. Something about a thin rivulets of softer stone running throughout. A kind soul on the Gardenweb kitchen forum had this advice. When considering a slab, have it pulled. Wet it entirely with water and squeegee it. Watch it as it dries. If the cracks remain wet, there may be a problem. It's too late for me, but I hope this helps someone still in the planning stage.

Spicy shredded pork

It's definitely fall. We're wearing boots and heavy jackets. Football is on the tube. Pumpkins and enormous pots of mums decorate stoops. Leaves are turning brilliant shades of red and yellow and orange. By the way, I'm still completely wide-eyed at the fall colors here. I wonder if I'll ever grow jaded.

For me, fall signals a food change. An end to fresh, juicy summer tomatoes and stone fruits and crisp salads. The start of savory, soothing root vegetables and apples and squashes of all sorts. And for some odd reason, fall means pork (shades of the ole pigskin, football?) and pumpkins.

So to celebrate fall, I'm looking for recipes porcine and pumpkin. To begin, I came across this pork recipe on The Pioneer Woman. Her recipe originally hails from Austin, TX. Love the serendipity.

This is delicious served as soft tacos: corn tortillas, avocados, shredded cheese, salsa or pico de gallo, etc. However, it's out-of-this-world yummy served as a stacked enchilada. Layer the shredded pork and some shredded Mexican blend cheese between two corn tortillas. Add some green chile sauce (if you've got some...canned enchilada sauce will do) and a runny fried egg on top. Lightly salt the egg. It's that fried egg that makes your taste buds do the rumba. Yum.

Spicy shredded pork
Adapted from The Pioneer Woman

Ingredients
* 4 pounds pork butt
* 1 teaspoon dried oregano
* 1 teaspoon ground cumin
* 1 teaspoon chili powder
* 1 tablespoon salt
* pepper to taste
* 4 cloves garlic
* 2 tablespoons olive oil
* 3 tablespoons white wine vinegar
* ¼ cups brown sugar
* 1 whole onion

Rinse and pat dry the pork butt.

Cut onion into quarters. Throw the onion quarters, dried oregano, cumin, chili powder, salt, black pepper, garlic, olive oil, white wine vinegar and brown sugar into a blender. Blend mixture until totally combined and then pour it over the pork butt.

Now rub it into every nook and cranny of the meat. Place the pork into a roasting pan or Dutch oven and add a couple of cups of water. Cover tightly and roast pork at 300º for 4-5 hours, turning once every hour. When it's done, let it rest for 15 minutes before shredding. Shred the pork butt (two forks work well). When it's shredded, pour the juices over the meat.

Cabinet love

Recently, a blog reader emailed me to ask who'd built my cabinets. It hit me then. I'd forgotten to mention my cabinetmakers! The wonderful folks responsible for my custom Cooking Apple Green and Old White cabinets are Country Craftsmen in Uxbridge, MA.

Patty and Billy executed a detailed plan flawlessly from inset uppers to custom-height drawers. Their prices were very reasonable. They measured carefully and correctly. (Those of you who've heard horror stories of too big or too small cabinets know how important this is.) They completed the cabinets exactly on schedule. Billy even came back to adjust the inset hinges after our general contractor installed the cabinets.

We chose their dovetailed wood drawers with Blum full-extension, soft-close hardware. The insides of these drawers feel like lustrous silk. Country Craftsmen also offers Blum tandembox.

For our blind corner cabinet, they installed Hafele's Magic Corner I. The blind corner was the only cabinet configuration that gave us both the large sink and the trash pullout that we wanted.

Furniture feet detail gave the Farrow & Ball Old White cabinets an unfitted look. Yes, you can put furniture feet on frameless cabinets. Their sprayed paint finish was exquisite. Silken smooth. Their wood finishes that we saw were equally well done.

I couldn't decide what color our hood should be so I'm waiting until all the other elements are in place. We asked that the hood be primed only, not painted. Billy used reclaimed white oak that matches our flooring to trim out the hood.

Many thanks to you, Patty and Billy, for my beautiful cabinetry. I smile every single day when I use my kitchen. It still feels like a dream to be in a functional kitchen with smoothly gliding drawers and tons of storage. A very happy dream.