Popular Mechanics - USA (2019-04)

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COVER ILLUSTRATION COURTESY SPACEX April 2019 3

The engineering expertise and creative

design that went into this stainless-steel

box will blow your mind (when you read

about it on page 6). Breville, the Australian

appliance company, is known for packing

a lot into its countertop product. This one

rises above. It’s an oven for cooking the

most important food group, pizza. Unlike

any of its ancestors in this category, it can

crank out 750 degrees Fahrenheit of heat,

and heat makes all the difference with pizza.

We tried it with store-bought dough,

homemade dough, and frozen pizzas, and

each came out crispy, evenly cooked, and

with a perfect singe on the bubbly cheese.

We made white-clam pizza, which got an

appropriate scorch and came out moist

but firm. We reheated leftover pizza, which

had none of the sogginess you get from

a microwave or even a toaster oven. We

had several pizza parties with 12 people,

including picky tweens. Everyone helped,

making whatever style pizza they wanted

(flat and crispy, deep dish, doughy, thin)—

the Breville cooks most pizzas in about five

minutes or so.

At the parties, we discussed the price.

We determined that on a typical Friday night

with a few families, you can easily spend $

to $100 on mediocre pizza. Whereas a ball

of dough from Trader Joe’s costs $1.19, plus

jarred pizza sauce and mozzarella and other

toppings. If you get together for pizza nights

eight or ten times over the course of a year

or three, you could have bought this and had

b et ter p iz z a , a n d m ore fu n.

It’s a giant leap in the world’s long history

of pizza-making. —Ryan D’Agostino

POPULAR WISDOM

6 Podcast, printing

press, pizza oven

GETTING STARTED IN

16 Skydiving

HOW YOUR

WORLD WORKS

20 How biometric

data is galvanizing

Air Force trainees

22 Stunt of the Month:

the epic fight in

Hellboy

24 Great Unknowns

COLUMNS

26 The I.T. Guy

by Alexander

George

28 The Body Mechanic

by Jacqueline

Detwiler

30 Ask Roy

by Roy Berendsohn

32 Owner’s Manual

by Ezra Dyer

34 Homesteading

by C.J. Chivers

36 My Patent Story

38 Spirits by

Francine Maroukian

DRIVING

40 Road Tested:

Jaguar, Mercedes-

Benz, Ford

43 The New Vintage:

2001 Isuzu

VehiCross

44 A motorcycle

road trip

PRACTICAL

KNOWLEDGE

46 Shop Notes

48 To o l Te s t :

Cordless Sanders

49 Is your derailleur

working? Are you

sure?

50 Things Come Apart:

Facebook Portal

53 The Lunch Pail:

Hack your noodles

THE LIFE

54 The couple that

sails together...

teaches sailing

together

THE TOURIST’S

GUIDE TO SPACE

60 So you’ve booked

your moon cruise.

What on earth

do you pack?

HOW TO BE A

TRADESPERSON

72 Welders, plumbers,

masons, mechanics,

and more: Here’s

what practical-

skills training looks

like in 2019

PM FAMILY

84 Start a garden, learn

how to solder, make

a grilled cheese!

THIS MONTH

GEAR WE TRIED

THE SMARTEST

TABLE OF