In the heart of...chocolate? The sea? Check, and Check. That's both, to you.

It's been disgustingly spitting rain and chill and grayness all over Boston since the sunny-70 degree skies we had on election day. And as most city dwellers know, there is nothing more miserable (particularly for cities on the ocean) than schlepping around, waiting for public transporation, and trying to keep dry when the rains just don't let up.And so, after a long week filled with much excitement and then rains, there's nothing better than hunkering down for the eve with good eats and good reads. Like Nathaniel Philbrick's amazing account of the tragedy of the whalingship Essex in his tome In the Heart of the Sea, which is based on a Nantucket whaleship which tragically found itself stove in by a tempestuous sperm whale circa 1819, the crew down a bunch of lifeboats, and the inevitable "drawing of straws" and cannibalism on the high seas. I read the book Philbrick based In the Heart of the Sea on this summer, Owen Chase's Shipwreck of the Whaleship Essex, which was banned on parts of Nantucket and Massachusetts after its publication. Herman Melville would eventually get his hands on a copy and use it as a base to this little novel he wrote called Moby Dick.My friend Lauren knew of my romantic love of the sea and desire to read as many New England ocean life books as possible and so let me borrow it over Halloween, and I in turn lent her Owen Chases account for good measure.It's the perfect accompaniment to a gray evening in Boston.And I just so happen to have been surprised to come home from work this afternoon to a gift of a box of delectable chocolates made at a bakery by the Massachusetts sea. So you see, gorging my face, cannibalism, book reading, and the ocean....they all come full circle today.Happy Weekend.