This space has been quiet for the past couple of months, and we’ve neglected to explain why. The short answer is that we’ve had a really busy summer.

My book about the pluot was published last week by Bloomsbury and is now available at bookstores everywhere. In The Perfect Fruit: Good Breeding, Bad Seeds and the Hunt for the Elusive Pluot, I tell the backstory of the pluot and its creator, Floyd Zaiger.

In its review of the book, Publisher’s Weekly wrote that “Brantley’s engaging mixture of agronomy, reportage and food porn… goes down easy.” For more information about the book, you can visit chipbrantley.com, follow me on Twitter, or check out Bloomsbury’s page on The Perfect Fruit. To keep track of upcoming readings and author events, please join The Perfect Fruit (the book) group.

One more personal note, Elizabeth, Angus and I moved to Alabama in June, and we’re slowly getting settled to life at the edge of the subtropics. Elizabeth and I grew up in Birmingham, and while we miss our life in MA, we’ve loved being closer to our families and reconnecting with old friends. Birmingham is also one of the best food towns out there. Come visit us and we’ll prove it.

In Cookthink news, we’re excited to announce that we’ve recently partnered with Weather.com on a syndication deal. We’ll share more details on that closer to the end of the summer, but be sure to check out the re-design at Weather.com–they’re adding a lot of interesting features.

One thing we’d love to see: Al Roker talking more about the impact of weather on our food cravings. As anyone who’s read Cookthink for a little while knows, that topic is one of Brys’s obsessions. In fact, he’s been busy this summer researching and writing a cookbook about the influence of weather and climate on cooking. (Right now, he’s studying the food of a certain humid coastal plain.) Look for updates from him later this summer.

More news soon. Stay cool in August.

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