I love barbecuing and really miss my fly pad in Berlin mostly because of the garden and the grill. That said, here’s an excellent piece of advice from the gang at Lifehacker — how to clean your nasty-assed charred up grill grate (via Clean the Grill with an Onion?)

Wipe your grill clean without the chemical waste by rubbing an onion against the grate of the grill. The Apartment Therapy blog explains that scrubbing a halved onion faced downwards on a heated grate will remove the grime and grit without requiring the hard and frustrating scrubbing of a Brillo pad. Plus, it’s an affordable green alternative that won’t cause putrid smells like most chemicals do. That is, as long as you like the smell of onions.