The Hunger Games (or not)

Hi, my name is Maureen and I'm addicted to The Hunger Games. I would like to dedicate this post to my wonderful friends Kate and Tracy for introducing me to this wildly popular series that is sweeping the nation. I'm not a huge book fan in general, I usually just see the movie, and let's just say it takes quite a bit for me to get into and love a series. I find out about the books a week before the movie comes out (wow Moe, where have you been?). Now I've seen the movie twice and just finished with Catching Fire and starting the last book in the series Mockingjay. 

So what do The Hunger Games have to do with home improvement you may ask? Food mostly hehe. As you recall, we really wanted a full-size house grill to upgrade from our little apartment-sized one so we could stop "tailgating" in our driveway. We love grilling but believe me, it is not as fun as it sounds. We planned on buying a new grill when we could scrap an extra $100-150 together but with the wedding this year, we just didn't see that money happening. Luckily, my friend Kate, the Hunger Games fire starter (pun intended), and her husband Sean were giving their old one away. 

Our new friend needed a little TLC before he could start "catching fire" (again with the puns) and a little cleaning. First we needed a propane tank to check to see if everything still worked. Minus the ignitor, we were in business.

We picked this up at Home Depot Simple Green Heavy Duty BBQ & Grill Cleaner. Pretty simple really. Spray the foam on. Let it set for a few minutes and then scrub clean. Being it was Earth Day, I was happy it was biodegradable.

After a good scrubbing, we used the power sprayer on our hose attachment to wash all the grime away. Not looking to shabby huh? We even got down to the stainless steel inside.

Max was super impressed the got the "Made in USA" to show on the burners.

After a good power washing, this was our grill ready to give us tasty meals.

Here she is all cleaned out.

After cooking our first meal Key West Chicken on it, we discovered a few cold spots. The chicken was very delicious. When we were buying the propane tank we saw they had replacement burners. We might replace the burner later this spring/summer for about a $30 upgrade.