By Dani Tietz
dani@sjodaily.com
The summer months will look a little different for St. Joseph’s Patricia and Bruce Rape.
Normally, the couple who has been married nearly five decades would spend the warm months looking out over vineyards, sharing glasses of wine with friends and bringing friends into their home.
But the summer of 2020 will look different. Instead of celebrating their 50th year of marriage at the Redwood National Park in California with family, the Rapes will be home, continuing to take the necessary precautions to protect themselves and others from COVID-19.
Though Patricia and Bruce have been staying very close to home for the last two-and-a-half months, they wanted to find a way to extend their curiosity and experiences with those they love.
So, they invited the world to their table: through Facebook.
On March 22, 2020, after seeing a graphic with a wine glass in every room of a home, the Rapes posted their first “Shelter at Home Wine Tour.”
Having toured wineries in California, Michigan, Missouri, Indiana and Illinois, the Rapes were equipped with an assortment of wines to start.
“I thought, well, we’ll just start and see what happens,” Bruce said.
To mix things up a bit, they joined a wine club from Utica and another one through Hopwood Cellars in Zionsville, Indiana.
“It’s one of our favorite little places that we discovered a few years ago with some friends,” Bruce said.
They’ve also ordered wines from the Wheelhouse and Naked Wines.
Pairing a wine with a meal isn’t anything new for the Rapes. But figuring out how to incorporate interesting cuisine, including some local ingredients, with a wine in a way that would bring people close when they had to be separated was something that excited the couple.
“We’re very much into organic and locally sourcing,” Patricia said. “I like to research recipes, so we try to incorporate those foods. When we find something that looks enticing or might appeal to someone else, then, we try to pair wine with it, and then we do that for our wine tour.
“We both love to entertain and we sometimes laugh because when we get together with friends, we’ll plan a day and they’ll say, ‘Oh we’ll come to your house!’ We love to do that for friends, so this is a way for us to share our food, and our flair for entertaining with those that are in our community and in our circle of friends.”
To date, Bruce and Patricia have completed 22 “Shelter at Home Wine Tours.” They’ve prepared cheddar broccoli risotto, North African curry, cheese boards, creme brûlée, pork chops from Bane Meats and demo boxes from The Wheelhouse. They’ve showcased wines such as Montelle 2013 Cynthiana Port from the Montelle Winery in Augusta, Missouri; Ruffino Prosecco from northeastern Italy, Biltmore Estate Tempranillo and Jacqueline Bahue Pinot Noir 2018, to name a few.
“It’s been funny to hear comments,” Patricia said. “One of the funny ones is from a gentleman Bruce knows through work. After all these foods that I think are just delicious, his favorite night was the night we featured nachos.
“But our nachos are a bit exotic.”
Even the exotic nachos likely have a hint of something local, though. The Rapes have taken advantage of local produce deliveries at The Wheelhouse, continue to keep connection with David Bane at Bane Family Meats and have discovered Janie’s Mill in Ashkum, Ill.
Thinking about the wine tour begins in the morning.
Patricia likes to see the big picture of the day, then work backwards.
“They have all these really wonderful flowers for pizza and for pastry,” Bruce said. “We just got a delivery from them (two weeks ago). It’s not really close, but it is locally sourced.”
Planning for dinner begins early in the morning as Patricia takes count of what the upcoming hours will look like. She plans backwards from dinner.
Sometimes the meals will help them connect with loved ones they haven’t had a meal with in a while.
“We generally just fix meals around what we’re hungry for,” Patricia said. “When we did the North African curry, we were just hungry for it. We hadn’t had it for a while, and it’s our granddaughter’s favorite. She’s seven; she’s a very picky eater, but curry is her favorite food. So we always have curry when we’re together.”
Whatever the theme of the dinner, Patricia picks out linens to go with the meal and Bruce coordinates his attire with her choices.
“It’s just the same as when I entertain with friends because I always plan certain linens or something different from the last time we were together,” Patricia said. “Bruce, who is very much a clothes person, says, ‘Did I wear this shirt before?’ So then he goes to the closet and picks out a collared shirt to wear for the evening.”
While some people chose to stay in the pajamas or sweats throughout the stay-at-home directive, the Rapes decided that they would continue to dress as if they were going out for dinner or having friends over.
Sunny skies have been helpful to lift spirits. Bruce and Patricia enjoy spending time on their front porch, waving and talking to passerby’s. But the cloudy skies and oftentimes chilly temperatures of April and May sometimes made it hard to pull through the day.
“The whole wine thing just make us feel better,” Bruce said. “It gives us something to look forward to, it keeps our spirits up because we both tend to get down days. We pick each other up. Just dealing with a new whole reality of our life I think is the hardest part.”
The Rapes know that variety is often the spice of life, though. Instead of always eating at the kitchen table, they travel room-to-room, just as they would if friends were over.
Still, though, both Bruce and Patricia continue to enjoy spending time together, exploring the world together and making memories. They’ve been married for 50 years, but have known each other for 65 years, since Patricia was five or six years old.
Since Bruce retired from Danville Area Community College two years ago, the two have become reacquainted to being at home together, which was more of a learning process that figuring out how to be quarantined together.
Patricia had already been retired from St. Joseph Middle School for five years.
“I’m a very independent person,” Patricia said. “I just did everything, because he worked. So learning then to share the household duties, and that they don’t necessarily need to be done my way, I think, that was the biggest learning process.”
A former literacy teacher, Patricia has enjoyed watching Bruce become an avid reader, though.
“That has really helped during the quarantine period because we both read, and it’s like we have our own private little book club. We read the same books, not at the same time, and then we discuss them.”
Even though the stay-at-home order has ended, and Illinois has moved into Restore Illinois Phase 3, the “Shelter at Home Wine Tour” will continue.
“I think the wine tour is a pick-me-up for us, but then sharing it with the friends that we miss so desperately. And then their comments make it as if we were together.
“They share in the joy of what they would have had had they been with us in our home.”
