Hi, I still exist! Did you miss me? I’ve been too busy playing with my new Oxo scale to post.

A couple weeks ago my old Soehnle kitchen scale stopped working. It had served me well in the kitchen for eight years. But I had a few complaints, and I was casting around for reasons to replace it. The Soehnle picked up dirt and was, in places, impossible to clean. You had to flip it over to switch between grams and ounces. And the platform was so small that you couldn’t weigh something on a plate or in a large bowl, because then you couldn’t see the screen anymore.

It turned out the Soehnle was just waterlogged, and it started working again a couple days later. But not before I’d ordered the Oxo Kitchen Scale.

Oxo is known for clever design. They make the mango slicer that cuts the juicy flesh away from the oddly-shaped pit. They make the liquid measuring cup that can be read without kneeling down.

But the scale is–and I realize this is an obnoxious comparison but bear with me–the iPod of kitchen tools. It owns its category. If you’re considering a kitchen scale, don’t shop around, just get the Oxo. They thought of *everything*.

* The grams/pounds button is on the top. (You’d be surprised how often this comes up.)

* It weighs up to 11 pounds. You may never expect to weigh 11 pounds of anything in the kitchen, but the high capacity will come in handy for two reasons: you can weigh a small package for shipping, and you can weigh ingredients in a large, heavy bowl without maxing out the scale. Furthermore, the Oxo has a gauge showing how close you are to 11 pounds, even if you’ve zeroed the scale. This is brilliant.

* The weighing platform is removable for cleaning (not in the dishwasher, though).

* The display has large numbers and an attractive blue backlight in case you’re cooking…AFTER HOURS.

* One of the most annoying things about some scales is the auto shutoff. Sure, I like saving batteries, but if I pause for three whole minutes in the midst of weighing, I don’t want to have to start over. The Oxo blanks the display after five minutes but doesn’t actually shut off until 45 minutes of inactivity.

* Finally, the display *pulls out* several inches, so it can’t be obscured by anything short of a buffet platter. Iris loves this feature. I hope they torture-tested it at the factory. It’s on a retractable cord and snaps back into place with magnets.

Two quibbles. The scale itself is a little large; it takes up more counter space than my old scale. And it displays ounce measurements in 1/8-ounce fractions rather than decimals. (The Soehnle measured in 0.05-ounce increments.) I prefer the decimals.

If you’re not already using a kitchen scale, here’s why you should. And if you want to play with a clever Flash demo of the Oxo, give it a whirl.