Today I want to write about a “hack” I have been using to get charcoal fires started.  By hack I mean a tip, a trick, a shortcut — in the fashion of a home remedy. 

Over a decade ago, I invited my friend Ray over for dinner and he noticed I was having trouble getting my charcoal grill going.  The method I had been using was to put scrunched up newspaper in the bottom of the kettle, topping that with the smaller of two round metal grills that fit in kettle.  I would dump charcoal on the smaller grill, then eventually place the larger metal grill on top of that.  It’s the larger grill that holds whatever you might be cooking: hamburgers, chicken, bratwursts, whole onions, whole peppers, foil packs of sliced potatoes and butter. Pork steaks, carrots, asparagus, shrooms.

The problem with what I’ll call the “straight newspaper” method is that the newspaper would often burn up too quickly, not having burned long enough to have caught the charcoal, the flame wasting away too soon.  In this event I would have to awkwardly lift the bottom grate, which was a little hot and which was still holding the unburnt charcoal. Then, in a vexed state, I'd have to shove more wads of newspaper down into the bottom of the kettle.  Sometimes I went through three rounds of newspaper before the charcoal would finally catch...