I should have known the holiday was going to be eventful when I managed to get my suitcase handle stuck in the train door at Rimini. There I was, half in and half out of a regional service that had seen better days, doing an awkward little dance while Italian commuters looked on with the polite bemusement reserved for British tourists who have made a proper meal of something simple. A very kind man in a Fiorentina shirt eventually freed me with a firm tug, and I arrived at my holiday home in Cattolica with slightly less dignity than planned, clutching a now-wobbly wheelie bag and a newfound appreciation for Italian patience.

The property itself was a revelation after my dramatic entrance. A proper little gem tucked into a residential street, with terracotta roof tiles that glowed in the afternoon sun and a balcony that practically begged for aperitivo hour. I dumped my case, still faintly embarrassed, and immediately set about investigating the kitchen because my stomach had been making increasingly threatening noises since Bologna. This, I quickly realised, was going to be the real joy of this trip. Not the beaches, not the nightlife, but the absolute freedom to cook and eat my way through the Emilia-Romagna coast at my own pace, in my own pants if I fancied it.

That first evening, I made what I considered a triumphant march to the local market near Piazza I Maggio, armed with enthusiasm and absolutely no Italian beyond "grazie" and "due birre per favore." The market was winding down but still glorious - stalls heaving with produce that looked like it had been painted rather than grown. Tomatoes so red they seemed almost rude. Courgettes with their flowers still attached, delicate and golden. I bought far too much, naturally, seduced by a cheesemonger who let me try three ages of Parmigiano-Reggiano and somehow convinced me I needed all of them. The youngest was nutty and mild, the oldest so crystalline and intense it tasted like savoury toffee. I also left with a slab of squacquerone, that gloriously sloppy local cheese that collapses at room temperature, and a length of mortadella that the vendor sliced with theatrical precision.

Back at the flat, I attempted my first self-catering triumph: a simple pasta with the market tomatoes, garlic, and that squacquerone stirred through at the end. I will confess that I got slightly overexcited with the olive oil, having purchased a bottle from a nearby frantoio that smelled like liquid grass and sunshine. The result was delicious but arguably a heart attack on a plate. I ate it on the balcony, watching the sky turn that particular Mediterranean pink, and felt genuinely emotional about a bowl of spaghetti. This is what holidays should be, I thought. No restaurant reservations, no performance, just exceptional ingredients and the time to enjoy them properly.

The next morning revealed my hubris. I had decided to make piadina for breakfast, that flatbread staple of Romagna that I had eaten countless times in restaurants. How hard could it be? The answer, as it turns out, is very hard indeed. My first attempt emerged from the pan like a leather bookmark. The second was raw in the middle and charcoal at the edges. By the third, I had achieved something vaguely edible but bearing no resemblance to the pillowy, blistered rounds sold at every corner in Cattolica. I ate my shameful creation with leftover mortadella and a strong coffee, laughing at myself on that same balcony. Some things, I reflected, are best left to nonnas who have been making them for sixty years. The attempt mattered, though. The trying and the failing and the eating anyway.

I spent the rest of that morning doing proper research, visiting a bakery near the harbour where an actual nonna sold me warm piadina that folded around squacquerone and rucola like a dream. I watched her technique with the attention of a student, though I knew better than to attempt replication. Some holiday cooking is about participation, and some is about grateful consumption. I was learning which was which.

The fish market became my morning ritual after that. Down near the port, the catch came in early and the atmosphere was glorious chaos. I bought sardines one day, their silver skins still gleaming, and grilled them simply with lemon and the herbs that grew in a pot on my balcony. Another morning I splashed out on vongole, tiny clams that I steamed open with garlic and white wine, tossing through linguine with more enthusiasm than technique. The shells clattered against my cheap tourist pan like applause. I ate with my fingers, mopping up the juices with bread from the forno around the corner, where they still baked in a wood-fired oven that had been going since before my parents were born.

By my final evening, I had found my rhythm. A simple roast chicken from the macelleria, stuffed with lemons from the market and surrounded by potatoes that turned golden and sticky in the rendered fat. I opened a bottle of Sangiovese from a local vineyard, spent slightly more than planned, and drank it watching the lights come on across Cattolica. The cooking had not always been elegant. There had been burnt garlic, oversalted broth, a risotto that required a spoon to stand up in. But every meal told a story of where I had been that day, who I had spoken to, what I had learned. That is the particular magic of self-catering somewhere like this. The kitchen becomes a diary, the meals become memories, and even the disasters become funny faster than you might expect. I finished my wine, saved some chicken for a sandwich the next morning, and started planning what I might attempt with the last of that magnificent olive oil. Some people collect postcards. I collect slightly chaotic kitchen experiences, and this trip had given me a glorious haul.