Nifty idea, but how durable will this thing be? At $500, it'd need to be able to cook several hundred meals before needing any expensive repair/replacement, else its market will likely be limited to those affluent enough to not care about the cost.
It's pretty, but there's nothing delicate about this cooker, and we plan to do a fairly extensive test program. We intend for this to be a real workhorse for cooks, usable several times per day for years.
