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Hi all -

I'm new here and Jane suggested someone might be able to help me with my quest.  Two years ago I checked out the "Classic Home Cooking" cookbook from our local library and returned it when it was due.  Two weeks later I requested the cookbook again and was surprised to find a different edition waiting for me at the library.  The edition I had checked out first was gone from the system with no one able to find out where it went and the librarians looked.  Since then, I've contacted many eBay sellers asking for photo of a typical recipe page and have found out from some souces that their books are in warehouses and cannot be checked.  Sigh!

It was a 1995 edition with publisher Dorling Kindersley printed across the top of the cover a wooden spoon to the left of the words Classic Home and some green leafy spice to the right;  below the word Cooking are the author's names Mary Berry & Marlene Spieler.  Below those names is a centered photo of a bowl, other ingredients around the bowl as well as two smaller bowls to the left and right of the centered bowl.  Other editions of this book have a different cover arrangement and the one with the ISBN ending in 1533, has a very similar cover.

What we loved about the cookbook is that the recipe page layout.  The recipe is printed vertically with Metric measurements for the ingredients to the left and American measurements to the right of that centered recipe.  This edition has several recipes that we've not found in other 1995 editions.

If you own "Classic Home Cooking" by Mary Berry with a cover as describled, please, please look inside to see if your book has the recipe arrangement as describled. If it is the edition I hope to find, I need the ISBN number and perhaps my quest will come to a succcessful conclusion.

Thank you one and all!

quiltermom, I think I've found at least the cover you're describing, and possibly a couple of sources for further research! I'll email you directly.

Thanks for your replies, Deborah and Rinshin,

Alas, the book with the matching cover on the ISBN site has a different title than the book I'm looking for.  I know for a fact the 1995 edition is titled "Classic Home Cooking" and the page layout is as described in my original query.

I could add a jpeg photo of the typical recipe page from the edition I seek if I knew how to do that on this forum.  The photo is in my own pictures folder.

I appreciate your efforts to help!

quiltermom - this is the image you want to demonstrate the layout of the recipes in the book.

Why not try contacting Marlene directly through her web page .. hyperlink

I am in touch with Marlena. She is trying to find her copy of Classic Home Cooking (I imagine she has a large cookbook collection) and she should then be able to confirm whether the recipe format as in the pic above, is the same as in the book.

I have also asked a couple of EYB members who own the book to check whether their edition has Cornish Crab Soup on page 16 and whether it looks the same as in the pic.

Thank you debkellie and Jane!

I long ago wrote to Dorling-Kindersley (publishers) and never got a reply. 

Thanks, Jane, for posting the copy of the Cornish Crab Soup recipe as a page layout exampler and for getting in touch with Marlene. 

Fingers crossed I'll soon have an accurate ISBN for this cookbook (or the actual cookbook??!), thanks to you fine folks!

This was sort of an interesting issue.  They have two books by Mary Berry with the same title Classic Home Cooking with completely different covers.  Online I am showing the same ISBN  but you say you don't want the 1533 but the picture and the year, 1995 looks right.0789401533, 9780789401533

I am also seeing this same cover on Google books with the same 1533 ISBN.  This sounds like the cover you are describing and the correct year.  This is from Book Depository, but the book is unavailable.

angrygreycat, I believe quiltermom has already investigated some of the editions for sale with that cover, and the recipe format is unfortunately not the one she's looking for. By the way, it's not unusual for a publisher to re-use an ISBN for a reprint with a new cover, a new edition with minor changes, or even a complete update/revision of a title.

It may be that 9780789401533 is the issue that quiltermom wants. We had the wrong cover image. I have now corrected it and that is definitely the image that quiltermom was describing.

Hi folks,

Thanks for your efforts to help, but the Mary Berry "Classic Home Cooking" 1995 issue that we own has the ISBN ending in 1533 and IS NOT the issue that has the recipe page layout I seek even though the cover is similar to or identical to the issue we want.  Please refer to the recipe page photo of the Cornish Crab Soup that Jane kindly posted for me.

Please check your copy of Mary Berry's 1995 edition of "Classic Home Cooking" to see if it has this page layout for recipes and a different ISBN.

I thank you.

We can rule out the 1995 Canadian edition ISBN 9780771573569. A member owning that edition has checked and there is no crab soup recipe and the recipe layout is not the same as the image quiltermom sent.

It does seem odd that a Canadian edition of a UK book that comes out in the same year would have different recipes and layout.

Thanks to whoever owns the 1995 Canadian edition for checking for page layout and recipe and to Jane for letting me know that ISBN isn't the one I want to find either.  Good information.

The quest continues! :)