  Tidal disruption events occur when a star passes too close to a massive black
hole and it is totally ripped apart by tidal forces. It may also happen that
the star is not close enough to the black hole to be totally disrupted and a
less dramatic event might happen. If the stellar orbit is bound and highly
eccentric, just like some stars in the centre of our own Galaxy, repeated
flares should occur. When the star approaches the black hole tidal radius at
periastron, matter might be stripped resulting in lower intensity outbursts
recurring once every orbital period. We report on Swift observations of a
recent bright flare from the galaxy IC 3599 hosting a middle-weight black hole,
where a possible tidal disruption event was observed in the early 1990s. By
light curve modelling and spectral fitting we can consistently account for the
events as the non-disruptive tidal stripping of a star into a highly eccentric
orbit. The recurrence time is 9.5 yr. IC 3599 is also known to host a
low-luminosity active galactic nucleus. Tidal stripping from this star over
several orbital passages might be able to spoon-feed also this activity.
