Getting to Ricadi was always going to be an adventure, but I hadn't bargained on my sat-nav developing what I can only describe as a nervous breakdown just outside Lamezia Terme airport. One minute it was calmly directing me onto the A3, the next it was insisting I take a sharp left into what appeared to be an olive grove. I obliged, because I'm precisely that sort of obedient idiot, and spent twenty minutes reversing past confused goats while a local farmer watched with the weary expression of someone who'd seen this exact scene play out a hundred times before. I waved apologetically. He raised his wine flask in what I choose to believe was solidarity.

By the time I finally found the property, tucked into that gorgeous stretch of Calabrian coastline, I was absolutely famished and slightly traumatised. The lovely stone cottage with its shaded terrace and glimpse of the Tyrrhenian Sea nearly made me weep with relief. But first things first: I needed feeding, and I needed it immediately.

The local market in Ricadi happens on Thursday mornings, and I arrived the next day with the desperate energy of a man who'd been living on airport sandwiches. The place was an absolute revelation. Stall after stall of glossy aubergines, tomatoes that actually smelled of tomatoes, bundles of wild oregano, and chillies everywhere - Calabria's famous peperoncino, dried in chains like culinary bunting, crushed into oils, stuffed into sausages. I bought far too much of everything, naturally. A grandmother selling pecorino laughed at my attempts to ask for "just a small piece" in phrasebook Italian, then cut me something the size of a house brick anyway. I wasn't complaining.

That first evening, armed with my market haul and the cottage's decent kitchen, I attempted my own take on pasta alla Norma. The aubergine behaved beautifully, melting into silky submission. The sauce tasted, if I say so myself, fairly respectable. The only disaster was my overenthusiasm with the peperoncino - I used three chillies where one would have sufficed, and spent the latter half of dinner with my nose running and dignity in tatters. The local red wine, some excellent Ciro, helped enormously. Nothing teaches humility quite like setting your own mouth on fire in a foreign country.

The following nights I abandoned cooking pretensions and explored the village's eating spots instead. There's a brilliant little trattoria near the main piazza where the antipasti just keep arriving - grilled vegetables, marinated anchovies, 'nduja spread thick on toasted bread. That spreadable salami is dangerous stuff, fiery and rich, and I became genuinely obsessed. The owner, Marco, started recognising me and would appear with dishes I hadn't ordered, "something special," always with a wink. One evening it was freshly caught swordfish, simply grilled with lemon and local olive oil. Another time, pasta with sardines and wild fennel that tasted like the coastline itself.

I did try cooking again, mind you. The cottage's barbecue saw some action with local sausages and those wonderful chillies, more carefully measured this time. I made friends with the butcher, who patiently explained which cuts worked best for the grill, though I understood perhaps forty percent of this lecture. My charcuterie board attempts became increasingly ambitious, laden with soppressata, caciocavallo cheese, and figs from a tree I spotted on a walk. The figs were technically stolen, I suppose, though they hung over a public lane and seemed fair game to my hungry brain.

The village bar became my morning ritual - espresso standing at the counter like the locals, watching the place wake up. By day four the barman stopped asking and simply started making my coffee. Small victories. Evening would find me at a seafront spot with an aperitivo, watching the light change over the water, planning my next meal with the seriousness of a military operation.

On my final market day I bought enough peperoncino to raise eyebrows at customs, plus proper local olive oil, plus that enormous pecorino, now slightly diminished. The grandmother winked at me. I think we'd bonded.

Driving away, sat-nav behaving itself for once, I realised something. I'd come for the beaches and the scenery, which were lovely, obviously. But what I'd actually remember was the food - the markets, the mishaps, Marco's unexpected dishes, that first catastrophic chilli incident. The way eating here felt like being folded into something, welcomed through the stomach as all the best welcomes are. I was already planning my return, mentally listing restaurants to revisit, dishes to attempt less disastrously. Some holidays give you photographs. This one gave me recipes, a slightly expanded waistline, and a genuine addiction to 'nduja that my local deli simply cannot satisfy.