I have never been more grateful for a sat nav than I was on the drive to Bullingen. My partner had insisted we take the scenic route through the Ardennes, which sounded lovely in theory. In practice, it meant me misreading a sign for Theux and accidentally leading us down a single-track road where we met a very patient farmer moving his entire herd of dairy cattle. We sat there for twenty minutes, windows up against the smell, both of us too embarrassed to make eye contact with the man who clearly had somewhere better to be. By the time we reached the holiday home, I was ready for a drink and possibly a small lie-down.

The property itself was one of those solid Belgian stone houses that looks like it has seen off two world wars and a fair few harsh winters. We dumped our bags and immediately turned our attention to the kitchen, because if there is one thing I had promised myself about this trip, it was that I would cook properly. Not just pasta with a jar of sauce, but actual Belgian food. I had visions of producing perfect carbonnade flamande, that beef and beer stew that makes you want to hibernate through winter. The kitchen was well-equipped, which I took as a sign. The local shop in Bullingen had other ideas. I managed to find the beef, but the beer selection was overwhelming and I panicked, buying something far too strong and fruity. The resulting stew was edible but slightly odd, like a main course that could not decide if it wanted to be dinner or pudding. We ate it anyway, accompanied by a baguette that had gone slightly hard in the car.

The next morning we drove into Liege proper, specifically to the Sunday market at La Batte along the Meuse. I have been to markets before, but this was something else. The smell of frites cooking in beef fat hit us before we even parked. I made a beeline for a stall selling gaufres de Liege, those proper dense waffles with pearl sugar that caramelises against the iron. I burnt my tongue because I have no self-control around hot food, and stood there making undignified noises while my partner laughed at me. We bought cheese from a man who spoke rapid Walloon French I could barely follow, some saucisson, and vegetables that actually looked like vegetables rather than the sad supermarket versions I was used to.

That evening we attempted to recreate the market magic at home. I had bought what I thought were cooking pears for a tarte tatin style dessert. They were not cooking pears. They were something else entirely, possibly ornamental, and they turned to mush in a way that was more compost than caramelised fruit. We ended up walking to the nearest proper pub, a local place where nobody seemed to speak English and the menu was handwritten on a chalkboard. I pointed at something involving meatballs in tomato sauce, which turned out to be boulets a la liegeoise, and it was magnificent. The meatballs were enormous, the sauce sweet and savoury in that particular Belgian way, and the frites that came alongside were clearly double-fried by someone who understood the assignment.

We spent the rest of the week in a pleasant rhythm of market mornings, pub lunches, and increasingly ambitious evening cooking attempts. I made a waterzooi that actually worked, a creamy chicken stew that felt like being wrapped in a warm blanket. My partner took charge of the frites after we bought a proper mandoline, and only nearly lost a fingertip once. We found a bakery in a nearby village that did pistolets, those small round bread rolls, fresh every morning, and I ate far too many with butter and local jam.

The local pubs became our evening ritual. There was one particular place where the landlord remembered our order by the second visit, which I found embarrassingly flattering. We drank Jupiler because it was what everyone else was drinking, and once made the mistake of ordering a genever after dinner, which is essentially like drinking alcoholic fire. I coughed for several minutes while the regulars pretended not to notice.

By the end of the week I had gained what I conservatively estimated to be half a stone, and I did not care even slightly. The final night we attempted a cheese board with our market purchases, sitting in the garden as the light faded. One of the cheeses was definitely too ripe, possibly alive, and we spent twenty minutes debating whether it was meant to taste like that before giving up and opening more bread. Some things are better left as mysteries.