I have never been so relieved to see a sign for Pomer in all my life. Three hours earlier, my partner and I had been standing at Pula airport arguing about whether the hire car took petrol or diesel, a debate I lost so comprehensively that the nice man at the rental desk had to come outside and check the fuel cap while we pretended to be very interested in some nearby shrubbery. Turns out it was diesel. I was wrong. This would become a theme.

The drive to Medulin Pomer took about twenty minutes, winding through pine-scented roads that made me feel immediately more Mediterranean and slightly less foolish. We were staying in one of those proper Istrian stone houses, the sort with terracotta roofs and shutters that look like they have seen a few things. Ours had an outdoor kitchen that the photos had made look charmingly rustic. In person, it looked like someone had built a pizza oven and then given up halfway through, which is more or less exactly what had happened according to the friendly German couple next door.

Within an hour of arrival, I had committed my first culinary crime. The local konzum in Pomer village was closing in ten minutes, so I grabbed what I could: some prsut that looked properly aged, a hunk of Istrian cheese with a name I could not pronounce, tomatoes that actually smelled of something, and a bottle of Teran because I am not completely hopeless. Back at the house, I attempted to light the outdoor grill. The German neighbour watched me fail for a solid fifteen minutes before wandering over with firelighters and what I can only describe as pity. We ate at half past ten, the prsut already going slightly sweaty in the humidity, and it was absolutely perfect.

The next morning revealed the true extent of my planning. The house had a proper kitchen inside, thank goodness, with a stove that worked on roughly the third attempt and a fridge that hummed with the determination of something that had been running since the nineties. I walked down to Pomer's little harbour, where a man was selling fish from his boat that had presumably been swimming that morning. I bought squid because it felt authentic, then spent twenty minutes on my phone learning how to clean squid in a language I do not speak. The results were chewy. I tell people they were meant to be like that.

Lunch became our thing. We found a konoba ten minutes walk away, nothing fancy, just plastic chairs and a woman who brought out bread and olive oil without being asked. The kind of place where the menu depends on what was caught. I ate brodetto that tasted like the sea actually wanted to be eaten, and drank Malvazija that made me briefly consider becoming a wine person. My partner had the grilled sea bass and spent the entire meal making appreciative noises that I have never heard at home.

The market in Medulin proper, slightly further afield but worth the stroll, became my weekend obsession. Istrian truffles, when I could justify the expense. More often, just vegetables that looked like they had been grown by someone who cared. I attempted fritaja with asparagus, which is basically an omelette for people who want to sound like they know what they are doing. Mine was acceptable. The second attempt was better. By the third, I was genuinely disappointed in myself for not having learned this years ago.

Evenings meant walking to the local for a beer that cost less than bottled water at home. There was a place near the marina, nothing special to look at, where the barman remembered our order by the second visit and asked about the squid incident, which apparently the fishmonger had mentioned. Small places. Good people. Terrible at keeping secrets.

I never did master that outdoor kitchen properly. The pizza oven remains half-built, a monument to someone's abandoned ambition. But I cooked fish I had watched come off a boat, ate cheese from a woman who made it herself, and learned that prsut tastes better when it has gone slightly sweaty in the humidity. Some things you cannot plan. Some things you should not try to.