Sing-along Café 2025-01-23

Our café last night was so nice! I baked the most wonderful blueberry muffins, with a nice crunchy golden-brown top and juicy blueberries. Everyone wanted the recipe, so I'll include it at the end. Nibbling our muffins was easy, as a few of the songs we sang had very long instrumental interludes. 

Our theme was Disney movie music. It was interesting to hear how different eras sounded different, from the 1940's to the present. It was partly the technology developing, but also the styles of music and the kinds of bands and orchestras that were popular. We don't hear a lot of twittering birds in the more recent Disney musicals, or coloratura singing with lots of tremolo. There were a few princesses whose singing we couldn't match. 

Listening to and singing all those movie songs, we remembered times we watched them in the theatre or at home on our televisions when we were small and when our children were small. I had a memory from when I was 6 years old, and lots of stories of my kids when they were little. We happily noted that the way that girls and women are portrayed has improved over time. And, we sadly noted that our culture seems not to have learned the lessons in respect for the land, respect for people who are different from you, respect for people over financial rewards, and other good values taught in the movies. The Colors of the Wind from Pocohontas was a little painful. 

We made an interesting discovery, a song about Canada that none of us had heard before. I promised to find out about it. It was the theme song of the film O Canada! in the Canada Pavilion at Epcot from 1982-2019. It's lovely. Do check it out. 

Next Thursday, January 30th, we will continue with our theme of movie music, starting again with Disney (because we have to sing songs from Frozen and Mulan, and Moana,...) but then branching out to other movie musicals. 

We used an album called "Disney Classics", and here are some of the songs we sang:

• Whistle While you Work from Snow White
• When You Wish upon a Star from Pinocchio
• Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah from Song of the South
• A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes from Cinderella
• Once upon a Dream from Sleeping Beauty
• What a Dog/ He's a Tramp from Lady and the Tramp
• Cruella de Vil from 101 Dalmations
• A Spoonful of Sugar from Mary Poppins
• The Bare Necessities from the Jungle Book
• Ev'rybody Wants to Be a Cat from the Aristocats
• Under the Sea from the Little Mermaid
• Be Our Guest from Beauty and the Beast
• Colors of the Wind from Pocohontas
• A Whole New World from Aladdin
• When She Loved Me from Toy Story 2
• Strangers Like Me from Tarzan
• Canada (You're a Lifetime Journey)
• I See the Light from Tangled

Blueberry Muffins (eat fresh- the next day they lost the nice texture)

1. Combine in a large bowl:

• 1 3/4c flour
• 1/3 c sugar
• 2 1/2 tsp baking powder

2. Add 

• 1 c frozen blueberries

3. Combine in a small bowl (or in the measuring cup as I did):

• 1/3 c milk (recipe said 3/4 but I wanted them to be dense)
• 1/3 c melted butter
• 1 egg

4. Add wet to dry until just moistened

5. Drop into muffin tin (greased or lined with paper or silicone cups)

6. Bake at 400F for 25 minutes.