James wrote:
> Does anyone have a cooker that works on the double boiler principle?
> You have water outside the inner pot. When that water dries out the
> cooker turns off.

Yes, Tatung's simplest rice cooker works that way. The inner pot
holds measured rice and measured water. The outer pot is what always
looks like an amazingly small measured amount of water. When that
water is gone, the rice cooker switches itself to "warm" and the
cooking process finishes as the temp slowly drops for 25 minutes or so.
The cooker has worked without any kind of problem for 15 years. I
parted with $20 for it at our local Asian market. Best small-appliance
buy I ever made.