There is a saying that you’ll always find your way back home, and for Chef Andre Rush, though his travels have taken him far and wide, he always finds his way back to his roots.
“Everything I do is all about Mississippi,” Rush said. “I always talk about it, and I put it out there as such.”
Rush was a chef in the White House for four presidential administrations: Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump. He served in the military for 24 years, and he’s traveled the world and split time living in Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles.
This weekend, Columbus’ own will return to give back to the community that poured so much into him and molded him to who he is. Rush wrote a memoir he hopes will inspire others, and he will sign copies of “Call Me Chef, Dammit!” starting at 1 p.m. Saturday at American Legion Post 69, 308 Legion Drive. Entry to the event is free to everyone, and refreshments will be provided.
Rush is an advocate for mental health, especially in relation to suicide and post-traumatic stress disorder. For this reason, he is more than happy to have the proceeds for all book sales at the signing event on Saturday go to benefit Contact Helpline, one of the only two centers in Mississippi that assist more than 90 percent of callers through mental health crises, according to director Katrina Sunivelle.
Contact Helpline
“I do a lot of advocacy for a lot of different things, and I kind of bring awareness to the ones that people tend to look over,” Rush said. “Supporting Contact Helpline is helping spread a message, especially coming from Mississippi. … I wanted to make sure that we were highlighting a dedicated cause that can be profiled and we could bring awareness to it. A lot of people don’t know about Contact Helpline or understand it.”
Sunivelle said funding is incredibly important, and with the influx of crisis calls they have been receiving because of the COVID-19 pandemic, they need as much help as possible.
“Because of our mission to help those who are suffering with thoughts of suicide and going through a crisis, receiving the proceeds from Chef Rush’s book signing will help us as an agency to have those funds to keep our lines open,” Sunivelle said. “Our services are free. It will also help bring awareness and will make people more comfortable to call us. We are currently in the process of hiring more crisis line workers to help answer the phone because our calls have increased, and we need to have more people so we can continue our 90 percent plus answer-rate to reach as many people as possible.”
For Rush, writing a book where he exposes so many things he intended to keep close to his chest was “brutal” but also a “revelation.” He hopes that there is something everyone can take from it regardless of upbringing, economic status or race.
‘We all have secrets’
“When they came to me and asked me to write this book, I initially said no because we all have secrets,” Rush said. “When I say ‘secrets’ I mean things that we don’t want to open. We all have our Pandora’s box. My life was my life and it was always private. … When I decided to write the book, I kind of took that, and it was unlocked. A million emotions and a million things were forgotten until I actually went back over and realized they did happen. It was just confirmation that this is life. People see just the finished product, but they don’t see how it actually started. For me, it was me looking through my own eyes and not knowing myself, so it was a revelation for who I actually was, who I have become and who I’m becoming.”
Now the memoir is officially on shelves at bookstores, Rush is working on getting a cookbook out, and he is working on a television show that has him traveling around the world and working with other famous chefs like Gordon Ramsay.
Rush said he looks forward to coming back home to Columbus and showing that anything is possible for the people of his hometown.
“My main thing is to come back and show, not just the youth but everyone, that anything is possible,” Rush said. “I’ve gotten a million ‘no’s, but it’s about keeping that perseverance and believing in yourself.”
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 42 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
