When @gringalicious's father, @noboxes, suggested she sign up for Steemit, she balked at the idea.

Her reluctance was defeated by her dad's was persistence; @gringalicious joined Steemit in August 2016. Shortly after, she composed a post to introduce herself to the community.

The payout was worth a whopping $0.21 USD...

Fast-forward 18 months and you'd have to scroll for quite a while to find a recent @gringalicious post that is worth less than $200 USD. On top of that, she's acquired a following of 10,000 and built one of the top 30 Steemit reputation scores (74).

The 20-something food blogger has even had her recipes featured in Good Housekeeping, Huffington Post and BuzzFeed.

But what does @gringalicious attribute her success to? Why does she think the trending page is "detrimental?" And, if the author rewards were to disappear tomorrow, would she continue blogging on Steemit?

The latest edition of 20 Questions: The Steemian Series has your answers.

20 questions with @gringalicious

1 - How would you describe yourself in one sentence?

@gringalicious - Wow, starting off with such a hard one.

I'm a fairly average 20-something girl with a huge passion for photography, food, travel, and fitness, and I sometimes tend to be a bit of a perfectionist.

2 - How were you introduced to Steemit? And what was your initial impression of the platform?

@gringalicious - Haha, funny story. First, I'll admit that I had little-to-no knowledge of crypto and blockchains back then. My father, @noboxes, actually introduced me to it and told me, "Hey Tori, this is such a great platform for your work!" My reaction to seeing it was something like, "Um, Dad that looks really cheesy and how could it be legit?"

He encouraged me to try it and I'm so grateful he did.

3 - At the bottom of many of your blog posts, you explain that your introduction post was worth $0.21 USD, which is a significant contrast to the value of your average post today. Other than consistently publishing posts, how do you believe you became successful on this platform?

@gringalicious - For me, I guess there were two main things and those are making sure to integrate into the community by building friendships and focusing on quality content over quantity. Those things will really help set you apart.

4 - In your opinion, what is the best thing about Steemit?

@gringalicious - I have not figured out how to sum this up in a single phrase yet, so bare with me. I'll start with freedom. I believe money is the single greatest form of control that our governments hold over us. As is often said, Steem is the gateway crypto. It enables people all over the world in any situation to break out of their financial bonds. My time in Chile showed me how repressive our current 'systems' are: financial, education, you name it. And not just in Chile, but everywhere. These systems are all designed to turn people into batteries to continue the overall system (yes, that's a Matrix reference, totally). Crytpo is going to allow freedom at a level that has not seen before and Steem is going to allow the non-techies, the non investment wiz's to use 'proof of mind' to obtain their freedom (and foodies too). Can any of us even grasp what that means yet? It's mind blowing and I am so excited to be part of it. It's going to change the world and as @donkeypong said in his 20 questions, “I hope I can make the world a better place in my own small way.” Steem and crypto are going to make that possible, I have absolute confidence.

5 - In your opinion, what is the worst thing about Steemit?

@gringalicious - Well, first of all, I've learned to differentiate Steemit from Steem. @lukestokes did a great post on this, Steem is not Steemit. So my answers apply to steemit.com, busy.org or chainbbb, dmania, etc. Newbies give up too easy. There are many reasons for that and I know things are being worked on at many different levels to increase retention. @lukestokes also did a post a while ago about setting proper expectations. The 'Trending' page is detrimental , it totally sets up improper expectations, in my opinion. Personally, I very seldom look at it. I think a quasi official "Steem for Dummies" would really be big help. Maybe some funding could go toward that. (NO, I am not volunteering to write it.) Steem, it can be a confusing place. @kus-knee did a newcomers comprehensive guide and I send this link to a lot of new users, but I don't think they're taking his advice.

6 - In the average week, how much time do you spend reading other users' Steemit posts?

@gringalicious - I'm constantly wishing I had more time to keep up with all the great Steemians . I'd like to, but time is always short. If I had to guess, maybe about 15 hours a week; I've never measured so it is hard to say. I will admit, it is one of my greatest weaknesses.

7 - You've attended SteemFest and even helped organize local Steemit meet-ups. Why is it important for this online community to meet face-to-face?

@gringalicious - While I was attending Steemfest, there was a night when a fellow Steemian friend couldn't' pay his tab at a restaurant where a group of us were having dinner. Another Steemian kindly offered to transact in Steem and right then and there they traded currency in a way that was applicable to real life. I think it's really important to meet each other face-to-face because as Steem is growing I think it's one of the greatest ways to keep the community strong and maintain relationships on a more personal level. It makes all this 'made-up crypto money' real… people make it real.

And, oh by the way, let me drop a plug here, there is a 'Steem Meetup' coming to North Idaho and the 'greater inland Northwest' in February, likely the week of the 18th. All interested, please contact me on steemit.chat.

8 - If all Steemit rewards disappeared tomorrow, would you still blog on the platform?

@gringalicious - Seriously? Since you asked, I'm going to be completely honest, I'd refer you to my answer to question #4. The cat is out of the bag: if Steem should fail (which I highly doubt), there will be another rise up behind it. I'll be posting there, working on my little change-the-world project(s). The saying of "come for the money, stay for the people" gets thrown a lot and there is a ton of truth to that, no question. For example, there are many, many times in the past that I became discouraged and all I had to do was go looking the latest vlog by @exyle to get me fired back up. So, I highly value the relationships and I would do whatever I could to maintain them through other means, but let's be honest with ourselves, there is no steemit.com, busy.org, dtube, etc. without the payouts and to say anything otherwise is disingenuous. We're not here to recreate another facebook, that's been done already. Facebook mastered how to enslave billions to work for free. Steem returned the power back to the people.

9 - What other cryptocurrencies interest you?

@gringalicious - Well, let's just say BTC is my friend and we'll leave that there. I stumbled upon some Youtube videos of the main developer of Cardano and that one really intrigues me. I need to watch the videos like 12 more times, though.

10 - What is the biggest difference between life in the United States vs. life in Southern Chile? Where do you prefer to be?

@gringalicious - It may be kind of a broad answer, but I'd say the biggest difference is just the overall cultures. You can't truly understand this difference until you've lived in both places because from a glance the places don't seem too different, it's in all the little details of everyday life that you really notice all the contrast.

11 - How would you describe your perfect meal?

@gringalicious - Oh, that's so hard. I'm a huge fan of Chinese cuisine when I'm cooking for myself, so for me the perfect meal would be a plate of variety of my favorite dishes including stir-fry veggies, rice, and meat entrees. Although, a breakfast bowl of berries, Greek yogurt, and granola is my favorite everyday go-to.

12 - What is your tip for taking the perfect food picture?

@gringalicious - Lighting! I could tell you a lot of things about what I've learned in photography, because there are many things to learn, but without good lighting it's very hard to go from there. I recommend using natural light whenever possible. Second to light would be practice. No magic tip or trick will ever give you the same knowledge as experience.

13 - Your food has been featured on BuzzFeed more than 25 times, as well as Good Housekeeping, Huffington Post, and a long list of other notable websites. What is your advice for aspiring food bloggers who are hoping to get noticed?

@gringalicious - Building relationships and socializing online are probably just as important as content. So give your content the best you've got, but also make time to network and build those friendships.

14 - Pretend you are given the opportunity to decide the location for SteemFest 3. Where would it be held, and why?

@gringalicious - I can't deny I'd love to have it somewhere in The States for the convenience; however, I loved traveling to Europe for the last one. Some of my Korean friends from SteemFest asked me if I'd attend it in Korea if it were held there and I undoubtedly would.

15 - How did you celebrate hitting 10,000 followers?

@gringalicious - I celebrated by doing what I love: creating more recipes to share with all 10,000 of them.

16 - Who inspires you?

@gringalicious - Again, such a hard one to give a single answer. I am always looking at other food bloggers across the web, and I also get inspired by other Steemians. Some of the friends I met at SteemFest are huge inspirations to me as well. For example, @allasyummyfood is such an amazing content machine, that girl! Also @timsaid has been crushing his photography game! If I started listing all of them, your readers would fall asleep way before the list was finished. Another amazing aspect to this platform, so many have been liberated to create in a way they themselves never knew possible.

17 - Are there any foods you strongly dislike?

@gringalicious - I am truly not that picky about foods I dislike, haha. I love mostly every kind, but papaya and octopus are what immediately came to mind. Not my favorites.

18 - What's your most embarrassing moment?

@gringalicious - Hmmm, this one took me a while to think of an answer for. Maybe my mind represses all the memories of these embarrassments because I know for sure I've had my share.

Okay, but I finally thought of something that I'll never live down and that was when I took my first driver's license test. I failed it completely because in my nervousness, I ran right through a stop sign in a quiet and peaceful neighborhood. Automatic fail.

19 - You get to have dinner with three people, living or dead. Who are you eating with?

@gringalicious - Off the top of my head: Jesus Christ (because I really like that guy), Dumbledore (die-hard HP fan here and it took me forever to get over the fact that Rowling killed him off in book 6), and Shia LaBeouf (because, 1, I really need to know what the heck he was doing in that very strange Sia video. 2, because I could probably use some inspiration to JUST DO IT! and 3, I bet he could use a talk with Jesus and Dumbledore.)

20 - What is one thing very few people know about you?

@gringalicious - I'm a great goat milker!

A shout-out to @gringalicious for telling us more about herself and sharing her recipe for Steemit success.

As always, thanks to all of you for taking the time to read.

Who would you like to see me throw 20 questions at? Drop me a comment below and I'll work on setting up the interview.

If you like what you read, be sure to follow my blog!

Previous "20 questions" interviews:

20 questions with @gringalicious (The Steemian Series)