Are you a writer who also enjoys tea? There's a contest going on over at Felicitea that offers an opportunity to showcase your writing talents for free tea and other prizes. There's only about a week left, so don't waste any time if you read about the contest and want to participate!

Here's the overview, straight from Felicitea's site:

Write: We're looking for poetry, prose, whatever you like. Feel free to haiku or make up a limerick, or write out a concise little paragraph. Just write about tea and it's relationship to you, your friend, or your last cup of coffee.

We want to connect new drinkers to tea, convert a coffee drinker (or other non-tea drinking people) or two over (at least get them to try good tea!) and reconnect tea lovers with what it is they love about tea.

• Tea drinkers it is your responsibility to help the coffee drinkers of the world. You are charged with helping them understand the joy of tea. If you are a convert tell your story. If you love tea, but still enjoy an occasional cup of coffee it's okay, but what about the tea keeps you coming back to the pot all day? Share with the Internets why they should kick that coffee habit. If you have a friend you're nominating, be specific.
• Coffee/Non-tea drinkers this is your chance to tell us why you drink coffee (or something else) instead of tea. This is your chance to tell all us tea drinkers what it is that makes you go for the espresso instead of the Earl Grey. Did you have a bad tea bag experience? Convinced all green tea is bitter? Are you willing to give it a shot but don't know where to start?

For the detailed rules and the prizes, click to read on!

Tired of reading about eating local? Mad that your friends are going on and on about the provenance of the sage leaves (heirlooms from my own garden, they are!) on the gourmet dinner they served you? Really sick of hearing about your college roommate's new chicken coop? Well, you may not be, but NPR commentator Amy Stewart, is.

In a piece that seemed more bitter than escarole picked past its prime, Stewart takes America to task for its focus on the word, concept, and media conglomerate behind "locavores." (In case you missed it, "locavore" was selected as the 2007 word of the year by The New Oxford American Dictionary.) She says local eating is just "another symptom of our deeply troubled relationship with food" and "our obsession with local food has gone far enough ... we have heaped all our fears and anxieties onto the dinnerplate." Umm... isn't that the whole idea of the local eating "obsession"? Isn't it that we've ignored our dinner plates too long? I thought that reconnecting with our food supply and caring about animal rights (not so much for the animals' sake as for our very health and life, mind you -- poor treatment of animals and vegetables is thought to be responsible for the majority of often-deadly foodborne illnesses we confront) was completely the point.

It sounds to me as if Amy Stewart is a little peeved she didn't get a book deal to pay for her groceries for a year.

Snack had a great piece on what she will not write about, along with a "will not write" list from other food writers. At the top of her list of no-gos were "hatchet jobs," where a negative article/review is written just to write something negative or tear someone down. The other writers all agreed that they didn't want to do those types of pieces either. Anthony Bourdain said that the overly "happy" pieces weren't for him and neither are restaurant reviews. Peter Elliot won't write any idea that he didn't come up with himself, and Michael Ruhlman strongly prefers to, as well.

This topic poses an interesting question for food bloggers, though. Even though not all (not by a longshot!) food bloggers are professional writers or journalists, there are still things that each will and won't write about. So tell us, because we care about the rest of the writers and not just the pros, what won't you write about on your food blog? Do you do recipes, but not restaurant reviews? Photos, but not recipes? Do you write for your audience, or just for yourself?

While at one point the awards given out by the Association of Food Journalists (AFJ) to various food writers and food sections only really mattered to their local readers, this is definitely no longer the case. Since most newspapers are online, we can look at food sections from all over the world in a matter of minutes, and the AFJ awards can help point us towards the good ones that we might take a look at in addition to our local papers. The 2006 awards were just released and some of the winners are:

• Best Food Sections (small): Akron Beacon Journal, The Advocate (Baton Rouge), Reno Gazette-Journal
• Best Food Sections (medium): The Oregonian, Baltimore Sun, San Jose Mercury News
• Best Food Sections (large): LA Times, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle
• Food critics Jonathan Gold (LA Weekly), Tom Sietsema (Washington Post) and Michael Bauer (SF Chronicle) were all honored for their restaurant reviews.

For full details, and to check out the names of all the very worthy other winners, you'll have to take a look at the press release (pdf).

If you ever gave any thought to writing for Slashfood, this is your big chance. We're looking for a couple of food-loving writers to join our team! We are looking for:

• A weekday writer
• A weekend writer

First and foremost, you should love food, dining out and cooking. You must also enjoy writing about it and be capable of expressing yourself in a clear, engaging way. If you enjoy photography, that's a plus; we love food porn. You don't have to be a professional writer, or even have you own blog, but you should be familiar with blogs including Slashfood and other members of the food blogging community. And, all glory aside, we do pay our writers.

We need someone who can commit to blogging daily or every weekend, but we're extremely flexible about the schedule. To apply, we need:

• Three sample posts (original material, please, not links to existing posts on a blog)
• A few words about yourself and why you're interested in food or writing about food
• Your contact info
• The position you're applying for, your location, and scheduling, including a ballpark number of posts per week

No attachments, please. Put everything in the body of your email. Once your application is complete, send us an e-mail at leadsATslashfoodDOTcom.