I’m Alex Rushmer, a chef and freelance writer who specialises in food, cooking and all things edible. I live just outside Cambridge with my girlfriend Charlotte, three chickens, two cats and a much-neglected vegetable patch.

About me (the slightly longer version)
For most of my life cooking was just something I did, rather than ‘what I do’.

After graduating from Cambridge with a degree in politics and no idea what I wanted to do with my life, I applied for a job in the halls of Westminster as an MP’s researcher. Ten minutes into the interview, my prospective boss put his pen down. “You don’t really want this job, do you?” he said – and I had to admit that he was right.

‘In that case,” the politician said, smiling, “the best piece of advice I can give you is this: work out what it is that you love doing – and then find a way to make a living from it.”

Admittedly, it took a while for me to work out how to do this. First I moved to west London, started working as a freelance writer and took a job in a cookware shop to supplement my meager income. After a year I returned to the family home near Manchester and set up my own business selling recipes. My life as an entrepreneur came to an abrupt end when I signed up for a ‘proper job’ working for a marketing company as an account manager and copywriter.

I lasted nine months. On one particularly cold, dark and lonely Sunday deep in the middle of winter I found the application form for Masterchef. After deliberating for many months about applying and then feeling adventurous after a couple of glasses of red wine, I speculatively filled it in and clicked ‘send’. And then, I quit my job.

Around the same time I met Charlotte, moved back to Cambridge, started blogging and writing about food in earnest, learned how to grow vegetables and still had enough time to play, experiment and stretch my culinary muscles in the kitchen. And just as life was starting to get back to something approaching normal, a researcher from the BBC phoned…

Cooking
My finest culinary hour so far took place in 2010, when I cooked my way to the final three of the BBC’s Masterchef – a televised competition to find the best amateur cook in the UK. I finished runner-up along with Tim Kinnaird, losing out to the incredibly talented Dhruv Baker.

During my time on the show I cooked a wide array of original dishes, recreating and reimagining classic combinations and flavours by using the most modern of culinary techniques alongside more traditional methods. Judges John Torode and Gregg Wallace pronounced my cooking some of the best modern British food they had ever tasted.

Now in the process of opening my own restaurant in Cambridge, I am also available for private catering, short-term executive and consultant chef positions, cookery lessons, demonstrations and TV work. Please contact me for details.

Writing
In addition to creating the globally successful food blog, Just Cook It, where I’ve documented my gastronomic experiments and culinary adventures over the past several years, my writing has been featured in a range of publications including Waitrose Food Illustrated, Delicious Magazine, the Financial Times, Home Farmer, Cambridgeshire Agenda and Portfolio Magazine.

Along with more general food features, I’ve tackled specially commissioned challenges from molecular gastronomy to home charcuterie. I am currently writing my first book and am available for commissions both large and small. For more information please contact my agent Juliet Pickering at AP Watt.

To keep up to date with my current whereabouts and future happenings, visit the News and Events section of my site.

Booking
To contact me with enquiries, personal chef events, questions, advice, comments or thoughts, click here. I read every single email, though may very well be slaving away over a hot stove and unable to reply immediately – apologies in advance.