MiMi Aye
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meemalee.bsky.social
MiMi Aye
@meemalee.bsky.social
4.5K followers 940 following 39K posts
One of the “coolest women in food” - Stylist magazine (no, they really did say this).

Also writer, author of MANDALAY: Recipes & Tales from a Burmese Kitchen, tired af.

https://linktr.ee/meemalee

#WhatsHappeningInMyanmar
#MandalayBook
Posts Replies Media Videos
meemalee.bsky.social
I contain (musical) multitudes.
MiMi Aye @meemalee.bsky.social Sad fact: Childhood ambition - become a music lawyer & work for Wet Wet Wet. I did actually end up drafting a licence for Marti Pellow. Archived from 17 May 2015 at 11:01
November 23, 2025 at 9:28 PM
meemalee.bsky.social
Happiest thing though:

I got to give a copy of #MandalayBook to @johnherndon.bsky.social 🥰

We’ve been online pals for over a decade now, but I wrote Mandalay after the last time I saw Tortoise - and I acknowledged them in the book!

I drew him a little tortoise of course 🐢
A man in an orange beanie (John Herndon from the band Tortoise aka A Grape Dope) holding a copy of my bright yellow book MANDALAY: Recipes & Tales from a Burmese kitchen. You can see his (smiling!) eyes and nose, but the rest of his face is covered by the book. He’s wearing a black puffer jacket and the back of his hand that’s holding the book has a black ink tattoo on it of a reflected bird sitting on water. Me, a Burmese woman in a black Tortoise t-shirt with an illustration by John Herndon, who is also an *artist* artist as well as a musician. I am smiling while holding open a copy of my book Mandalay in which you can see I’ve written a dedication to John and drawn a little tortoise.
November 23, 2025 at 8:31 PM
meemalee.bsky.social
Marta Sofia Honer and Jeremiah Chiu provided excellent support to Tortoise last night, with a beautiful, dreamy set ✨

@intlanthem.bsky.social
A white woman and an East Asian man, both wearing black, on stage. The man is gesturing to the woman and the woman is looking back at him. The woman is holding a violin and bow downwards in front of her. Various pieces of musical and other sound equipment are on the stage between them.
November 23, 2025 at 8:08 PM
meemalee.bsky.social
The kind of show worth waiting (nearly) a decade for.

Tortoise at the Barbican, playing tracks from their stunning new album Touch, as well as beloved songs from their back catalogue.

Tortoise are the best live band I have *ever* seen and I have been to a *lot* of gigs.

@intlanthem.bsky.social
November 23, 2025 at 7:26 PM
meemalee.bsky.social
100% this.

Also this message popped up when I went to reply to you and that is extremely cool
The post you're replying to was marked as being written in sco by its author. Would you like to reply in sco? Yes
November 22, 2025 at 2:42 PM
meemalee.bsky.social
And sometimes us lot with the ‘difficult’ names are so fed up of people getting our names wrong, we end up taking the path of least resistance 😭
WhatsApp exchange with a doctor pal: Pal: MiMi -sorry to bother you. How do I pronounce the name [redacted Burmese name]. He won't tell us how to say his name properly and keeps saying whatever is easy for you 😭 Me: No bother but can I ask for context - who is he? I'll send you a voice note [voice note with pronunciation] Pal: Thank you. He's one of our Resident doctors. He's now telling everyone to call him Woody 😭 Me: Oh for the love of god
November 22, 2025 at 2:27 PM
meemalee.bsky.social
The best thing about being privileged enough to be able to work from home is that I just switched off my laptop and then ran upstairs to dive under my duvet.

(The kids are still at my parents’ house which they keep at a tropical heat)
Screenshot of my weather app: MY LOCATION Bexley, London 3° Feels Like: -3°
November 19, 2025 at 6:18 PM
meemalee.bsky.social
Mafaldine pasta, tomato, garlic and onion sauce, crispy bacon, chilli flakes, basil.

Makes me feel warm and sunny even when the weather is not.
A white bowl with a wide lip, holding long, wide, crenellated ribbons of pasta mixed with pieces of crispy, streaky bacon. 7 bright green basil leaves and a handful of dark chili flakes have been scattered over the top. You can’t see the tomato sauce but it’s there.
November 15, 2025 at 6:03 PM
meemalee.bsky.social
Seriously wondering if I can pass for 25 right now.
An ad as follows: Preparing for Adulthood Wed 26th November 25 10am-11:30am Online via MS TEAMS Our free Preparing for Adulthood workshop series provides Bexley Voice members with the opportunity to get information for their young people in Years 8/9 to age 25, who are preparing for adulthood, which includes information about: education, health and social care, employment, finance and benefits.
November 15, 2025 at 3:38 PM
meemalee.bsky.social
Extremely proud to have
contributed to @vittles.bsky.social
'Six of the Best' South South East London Special and cracking up to discover that *two* of our recommendations are on the exact same road.

Out today!

www.vittlesmagazine.com/p/is-there-a...
VITTLES Restaurants Is There Anywhere Good to Eat in Bromley? Where to eat in Penge, Welling, Sidcup and Beckenham by Jonathan Nunn, MiMi Aye, Gary Doherty, Apoorva Sripathi, Toyo Odetunde and Tom Jenkins. VITTLES NOV 14
November 14, 2025 at 1:50 PM
meemalee.bsky.social
Just attended an @intlanthem.bsky.social Listening Party on @bandcamp.com for Tortoise’s new album Touch.

Was soooo good and cannot wait for the Barbican gig!

Thank you @johnherndon.bsky.social and the rest of TRTS!
Image is the cover of the new Tortoise album Touch - a black & white illustration of a woman’s face looking downwards, with a scorpion framing the left side of her face and its tail framing the top. Text is as follows: Touch Listening Party November 9, 2025 at 5:00 PM GMT You're attending this event Join us in the chat as we listen to TOUCH in its entirety with members of TORTOISE !!
November 9, 2025 at 7:14 PM
meemalee.bsky.social
Would.
My hand holding a tin of Fray Bentos All Day Breakfast. Picture on the tin is of a fork holding some baked beans and sauce, topped with some puff pastry.
November 9, 2025 at 2:32 PM
meemalee.bsky.social
This thing gets taller every year and I kinda love it.
A knitted topper on a red postbox which is basically a fountain of cascading red poppies.
November 9, 2025 at 12:56 PM
meemalee.bsky.social
We’re snailposting, post your snails
Two snails with brown striped shells on the base of a fake plastic terracotta pot. One of the snails is much smaller than the other snail and is above that other one. The snails are facing in opposite directions.
November 9, 2025 at 12:28 PM
meemalee.bsky.social
Came across this Indo-Burmese condiment and the ingredients look proper legit.

Was about to buy a jar until my brother pointed out that Thami Letto
- the South Asian name for our Htamin (Let) Thoke ie rice salad means ‘short-armed daughter’ in Burmese and now I’m crying with laughter.
A jar of Thami Letto, Burmese rice & noodle topper, from Burmawala Kitchen INGREDIENTS: Sardines (Fish), Fried Onion (Onion, Sunflower Oil), Sunflower Oil, Roasted Peanuts, Sesame Seeds, Gram Flour (Chickpeas), Garlic Powder, Salt, Monosodium Glutamate, Turmeric Powder, Paprika Powder, Chilli Powder, Fish Sauce (Anchovy, Salt, Sugar). Lime Juice A photo from Burmawala Kitchen of a noodle salad after it’s been mixed with their Thami Letto topper. Note, the Burmese call noodle salad Khao Swè Thoke, and we call rice salad Htamin-Thoke. Let-thoke or Let-Thoke Sone is a combo of both rice and noodles. Htamin Let Thoke is therefore a conflated name which has been adopted in South Asia and then further corrupted into Thami Letto. This is pretty common - see also Ohn-No Khao Swè - Burmese coconut milk noodles - which is called Khao Sway in South Asia. And it goes both ways - paratha became palata in Burmese, vada fritters became bayar-kyaw. It’s actually really satisfying to track all of this, and I’m fairly certain I was the first person in the west to work out that our meeshay (thick, round rice noodles) came from the Yunnanese mixian.
November 9, 2025 at 10:13 AM
meemalee.bsky.social
At my parents and I found this fan and was like, "Ooh, I wonder what beautiful image will unfold?"
November 8, 2025 at 12:17 PM
meemalee.bsky.social
Stock has joined in by writing this.

That’s THREE hit pieces now.
Screen shot from a racist piece on a racist platform by a racist woman using a photo of the face of one of the women of colour that is being attacked on behalf of another racist woman.
November 7, 2025 at 4:00 PM
meemalee.bsky.social
The first time I ever posted about this decadent treat, chef and food writer Tim Anderson was so moved that it inspired a recipe in his next cookbook - that’s a hell of a compliment!
An extract from the intro to Baked Potatoes with Butter and Salmon Roe, a recipe in the cookbook Your Home Izakaya by Tim Anderson, which mentions that he saw an Instagram photo of mine and had to make a version of it because it reminded him of the cuisine of Hokkaido.
November 5, 2025 at 7:20 PM
meemalee.bsky.social
“Isn’t it too dreamy?”

My lunch was a big potato, baked until crisp and crunchy outside, smashed open to reveal the steamy, fluffy insides, slathered with lots of butter, and then laden with spoonfuls of rainbow trout roe 🧡

A few snips of chive or spring onion and boom!
A jacket potato on a blue willow Churchill plate. The potato has been split open and is loaded up with lots of orange trout roe, glowing like jewels. Some snips of bright green spring onion/scallion are scattered on top.
November 5, 2025 at 6:14 PM
meemalee.bsky.social
More context pt 4
(4/6): I spent three hours with the presenter Katie Razzall who grilled me, often asking absurd questions with zero impartiality so key to the guidelines issued by the BBC. In the run-up the producer Charlotte McDonald sent a number of alarming emails about potential fallout - which was precisely what I had warned against, begging them NOT to do the series. (5/6): Today The Times has run a skewed, misleading piece with numerous easily provable lies, and I've had my first anonymous and abusive email. Twitter is a cesspit with the same people calling us "harpies", authors calling for our "heads to roll", and the whole circus has reignited. (6/6): I won't be here for a while, so please bear with me. And thank you for the kind messages and phone calls. I really appreciate it.
November 4, 2025 at 6:18 PM
meemalee.bsky.social
More context pt 3
Caption from an Instagram post by monisha_rajesh (1/6): In March a BBC Radio 4 producer named Charlotte McDonald wrote to me saying they were going to do a podcast called Anatomy of a Cancellation about the horrific furore of August 2021 surrounding the author I will not name. I told them that it was violent behaviour to dredge up an issue from four years ago that caused untold harm to me, Chimene Suleyman and Sunny Singh. (2/6): For more than two years we were dragged in the British press for agreeing that phrases in that woman's book were racist, antisemitic, ableist, fatphobic and demeaning of working classes. We were called "attackers", "detractors", "harpies", "abusers" and dehumanised for pointing out the major issues in the structure of UK publishing. (3/6): All of us refused to go on the podcast and numerous friends got in touch saying the BBC had also tried to rope them in. Eventually I realised it was going ahead whether or not l played ball and I realised I was damned if I did and damned if I didn't.
November 4, 2025 at 6:17 PM
meemalee.bsky.social
Happy World Sandwich Day - click on the link for my ode to the prawn mayo sarnie 🩷

www.instagram.com/p/DQnE79KjG7...

#WorldSandwichDay
An extremely closeup of the cross-section of a white bread sandwich filled with plump pink prawns and mayo, speckled with red cayenne pepper. You can just about see that the sandwich is sitting on a blue willow Churchill plate and there’s green grass in the background.
November 3, 2025 at 11:16 PM
meemalee.bsky.social
I hear it’s Godzilla Day!

(And yes, I do regret not buying this fella)
A bust of 1962-era Godzilla for sale in a Tokyo toy shop for ¥6,000, flanked by two other versions. Its eyes are wonky and its jaw is wide open - it looks really gormless or derpy as I believe the kids say.
November 3, 2025 at 8:24 PM
meemalee.bsky.social
Just sent out a batch of signed copies of ‘MANDALAY: Recipes & Tales from a Burmese Kitchen’ that I’d donated as raffle prizes for Myanmar fundraisers.

Got me thinking if I should do them for Christmas again?

I probably have to decide soon because I’d need to order them in.

#MandalayBook
The title page of my book MANDALAY with a glittery drawing by me of a map of Myanmar plus a cover note for the raffle winner The title page of my book MANDALAY with a glittery drawing by me of the Shwe Dagon Pagoda plus a cover note for the raffle winner The title page of my book MANDALAY with a glittery drawing by me of some pink orchids plus a cover note for the raffle winner The stack of books parcelled up for delivery to the raffle winners with ‘Mandalay’ stickers on each parcel
November 1, 2025 at 6:59 PM
meemalee.bsky.social
Extremely pleased with how the kids’ Halloween costumes turned out this year.

The best thing about their relatively niche tastes is that it’s easier to repurpose/cobble together/make ourselves than to buy an overpriced ensemble.
Sans from Undertale - pixelated cartoon of grinning skull-face character with one blue eye, wearing a blue hoodie and white top, black shorts, white legs and pink slippers. He has his hands in his pockets. A small boy wearing a full cover head mask with a grinning skull-face drawn on with sharpie plus one blue flaming eye (apparently a cooler version). He’s also wearing a blue hoodie on top of a grey hoodie, dark shorts, white tights and pink Patrick from SpongeBob socks. He has his hands in his pockets. A black & white photo of a girl with a white heart covering her face. She’s wearing a black dress with a white bow, white gloves, white horns and halo. She’s carrying a small plush doll which looks like a stylised, cute devil (Bendy from Bendy and the Ink Machine). Alice Angel from Bendy and the Ink Machine - a black and white rubberhose cartoon character with black lipstick, beauty spot, big eyelashes, white horns and a halo. She’s wearing a black dress with a white bow and white gloves. She’s sitting on a mound, making a welcome gesture with one hand and she’s smiling.
November 1, 2025 at 11:22 AM