This website and its archives have been sitting under wraps, behind a wall of password protection, for nearly a year. Its old location was tied too closely, I decided, to the material I'd posted online about my academic research. Colleagues and potential employers could stumble across it with no effort at all, just by searching for my real name or a paper I'd written. And while writing about food is hardly the most frivolous or embarrassing hobby I might have, it's generally best for junior academics, especially junior academics who haven't yet landed a tenure-track position, to efface all signs of personality or interest beyond their work, at least on first acquaintance.
So the wall went up and the Google spiders slowly went away, and so, of course, did all my readers and anyone who wanted to find a nice recipe for plum cake, godlike snacks, or preserved lemons. I was happy to give out the password, but how was anyone to know? You had to ferret out my email address and ask me right out, in the face not of some friendly page inviting you to get in touch, but the impersonal glare of a "401 Authorization Error."
I was charmed and flattered to find that there were a number of people willing to go to the trouble. I would certainly not have done the same, in your place. I'd be too shy -- and there are so many good food websites these days, it's easy to find more to fill the space where one hungry tiger used to be.
As you can see, though, I've finally moved the site to a place where it doesn't need to be password protected. Even I was tired of the creaky old setup, the need to log in, the impossibility of searching for old recipes with Google. While I was importing the site into Typepad, I also made an attempt to update the way the archives were organized and categorized. So many old entries weren't well tagged, and the set of categories I'd built up over the years was more idiosyncratic than useful. I hope you (and I!) will find it easier to navigate the archives now, and easier yet once I add a few more refinements and indices I have planned.
If, after all that obfuscation and inconvenience, you're somehow here and reading this, thank you. Although I'll never return to the volume of posts I managed when I was a sprightly new grad student with a shiny new website, there will be new material. Welcome back!
Howdy! So glad to see you up and open for readers! I was saddened when your original site went private, and had planned to email asking for access. Imagine my pleasure to see this site in my own blog's referrers!
I'll look forward to your future postings!
Posted by: Elsa | 08/15/2009 at 04:35 PM
Hello! I'm very happy to see you here.
Posted by: redfox | 08/15/2009 at 07:39 PM
I was among the shy ones :) but I'd kept your feed in my reader all this time, and I'm very glad you're back!
Posted by: clotilde | 08/18/2009 at 03:04 PM
HURRAH!
Posted by: Liz | 08/18/2009 at 06:23 PM
Clotilde, I'm glad too! and very glad you've found me here.
Liz, I didn't realize until this week that you had a food blog too. I'm excited to read all your archives. Don't mess with Tex^H^H^H Alaska!
PS. How vexing that Typepad won't let me use strike tags in a comment.
Posted by: redfox | 08/18/2009 at 09:56 PM
came here first time as Maki of 'Just hungry' wrote a post about you........i am an Indian and find many recipes similar to ours....the lemon preserve we make is exactly similar n is paired with soupy lentil khichri...
i write blogs too and it's mostly about good , nutritious and some traditional Indian food , my blogs are not fancy websites but it means a lot to me cuz i am able to do that despite being a full time nursemaid to my bedridden daughter..
am happy to have found you here....will be coming frequently to see all your archives....
Posted by: sangeeta khanna | 08/19/2009 at 01:55 AM
I wondered where you went - if only I had I known I could email for a password!
Posted by: Ria | 08/19/2009 at 09:17 AM
i'm very glad you are back!
Posted by: maryn | 08/19/2009 at 11:45 AM
Hurray! I am so glad you're back! I use many of your previous recipes frequently and am so excited to see what you have up your sleeve now!
Posted by: Kat | 08/20/2009 at 01:39 PM
Sangeeta: Thank you! I love khichri, and I like the idea of pairing it with the middle-eastern style preserved lemons I've written about here.
Ria: Yes, I'm afraid I was exactly the opposite of helpful or forthcoming. Not very sociable of me, to say the least.
Maryn: Same here! Thanks.
Kat: It's so nice to think of all those recipes out there being used. I still make so many of the same ones myself that I worry a little bit that I won't have much in the way of new material to share. I have a few things in the queue, though, and I'm sure more will turn up as I go along.
Posted by: redfox | 08/23/2009 at 06:08 PM
So glad you're back! I had been checking on occasion too, and didn't realize I could email you. Silly me for not digging a bit more. :)
And this morning, on the drive to work, I was thinking about how I wish I had a copy of your cheese and nut loaf. And lo and behold, here you are. Hooray!
Posted by: Samantha | 08/24/2009 at 04:34 PM
Oh good! I was a long time reader and I'm glad I thought to google "The Hungry Tiger recipes" to re-find you again.
Cheers,
Catherine
Posted by: CG | 08/26/2009 at 02:03 PM
ditto everyone else, am so glad you're back! awesome!
Posted by: happy | 09/10/2009 at 11:18 AM
I'm so glad to see your blog is back! I believe it was the first food blog I ever really followed, and it's certainly inspired me in my attempts at doing my own. (Though my screen name itself was inspired by the Borges poem. This is what happens when you set out to start a writing blog and think, "Oh, well, I might as well write a food blog under the same screen name." Famous last words.)
I'm looking for a particular recipe, my latest search for which being how I ended up discovering that you've restarted the blog. I remember getting a wonderful Moroccan carrot puree spread recipe off of your blog years ago, but I can't seem to find it here. Am I remembering the right blog?
Either way, I'm looking forward to your future posts, as well as being able to see the older ones again!
Posted by: The Other Tiger | 09/18/2009 at 12:51 PM
Other Tiger: You are not misremembering! It just turns out that that recipe is rather buried at the bottom of the post that it appears in. And here it is.
Posted by: redfox | 09/18/2009 at 01:16 PM
Thank you! My husband and friends will be pleased; they all declared it better than hummus when I've made it in the past. It disappeared in a *poof* of exotic spices every time I served it to guests.
Posted by: The Other Tiger | 09/19/2009 at 07:57 PM