I have never been so happy to see a pine tree in all my life. After six hours of driving from Bologna airport, a wrong turn that took us through what I can only describe as an industrial estate's industrial estate, and a heated debate about whether the sat nav was possessed or merely incompetent, we finally spotted the tall, skinny pines that line the roads around Lido di Spina. My partner Dave had insisted on driving the whole way because he "knows how Italians think." This from a man who once tried to order a latte in Rome at eleven in the morning and couldn't understand why the barman looked at him like he'd asked for a pint of custard.

The mishap, though. I need to tell you about the mishap. We'd stopped at a services near Ferrara for coffee and what Dave calls "a proper stretch." I bought a wheel of Parmigiano-Reggiano the size of a dinner plate, reasoning that we were in Emilia-Romagna and it would be criminal not to. I stashed it on the back seat. What I had not accounted for was the August heat, the black leather upholstery, and the fact that cheese, like revenge, is a dish best served at room temperature rather than melted into the seat stitching. When we arrived at our terraced house in Lido di Spina and I lifted that wheel of cheese, it left behind an imprint that I can only describe as art. Abstract, dairy-based art. Dave just stood there with our suitcase and said, "Well. That's going to smell interesting by Friday."

The house itself was perfect in that slightly ramshackle Italian way. Terracotta tiles, shutters that needed a firm hand, and a kitchen that clearly expected to be used properly. I took one look at the four-ring gas hob, the decent-sized fridge, and the view through to a small patio with a barbecue, and I made a silent vow. We would eat like locals. We would shop like locals. We would not, under any circumstances, become those British people who pack beans and teabags and complain about the coffee.

The first morning, we walked to the weekly market that sets up near the centre of Lido di Spina. I use the word "centre" loosely. This is a beach town built for summer living, all low-rise houses and sandy paths and bicycles everywhere. The market was already busy by nine, stalls shaded under striped awnings, vendors shouting prices that seemed to change depending on how charming they found you. I bought tomatoes that actually smelled of tomatoes, which sounds like a low bar until you've spent fifteen years eating supermarket ones that taste of chilled water. Dave got distracted by a man selling fresh pasta and came back with three kilograms of tortellini because "he made it sound like an investment."

Our first self-catering attempt that evening was, with hindsight, overly ambitious. I had this vision of us on the patio, local wine, perfectly grilled fish, maybe a little salad. What actually happened was that I discovered the barbecue needed charcoal I didn't have, the gas hob had one ring that worked aggressively and three that seemed decorative, and the fish I'd bought from a van near the beach turned out to be excellent but approximately four times the quantity two people should reasonably attempt. We ate grilled orata at midnight, slightly drunk on Sangiovese, using our fingers because I'd also forgotten proper fish knives. Dave looked at me with tomato sauce on his chin and said, "This is the best terrible meal I've ever had."

The local shops became my obsession. There was a small alimentari where the owner, a woman called Luisa with formidable eyebrows, slowly warmed to my attempts at Italian. By day three she was selecting my prosciutto crudo for me, holding slices up to the light to show the fat marbling, making me smell the aged balsamic before she'd sell it. I bought piadina bread still warm from the griddle, squashed flat and wrapped in paper, and we ate it walking back with mortadella and soft cheese that oozed in the heat. Dave developed a serious relationship with a bakery near the beach that did brioche filled with pistachio cream, which he ate at ten in the morning with a cappuccino while I judged him slightly and stole bites when he wasn't looking.

I attempted to make ragu on our third evening. Proper Bolognese, or as proper as I could manage with a kitchen that had one decent knife and a wooden spoon that had seen things. I spent forty minutes soffritto-ing onion, carrot and celery until they were soft and sweet, added the minced beef and pork I'd found at a butcher in nearby Lido degli Estensi, then let it all bubble away with a bottle of passata and a glass of red that definitely should have gone in the cook rather than the cook's mouth. By the time we ate at half past nine, the pasta was slightly overdone because I got distracted by the sunset turning the pine trees gold, and the ragu had reduced to something almost too intense. Dave said it was "proper food, that" in his Manchester accent that gets thicker when he's genuinely pleased, and I felt absurdly proud of something my grandmother could have made blindfolded.

The market became our Thursday ritual. I'd wake early, earlier than on any working day at home, and walk there with a string bag while Dave snored on. I learned which stall had the best peaches, how to check that mozzarella was made that morning by pressing it gently to feel for the give of fresh curd, which old man would sell me his own olive oil in unmarked bottles and become offended if you didn't taste it right there and make appropriate noises. I spent one morning just watching a woman prepare artichokes, her fingers moving with the automatic grace of forty years' practice, and when she caught me staring she demonstrated the technique and gave me three to take away. I ruined them, naturally. Too much lemon, not enough patience, and a fundamental misunderstanding of how long they take to become tender. We ate them anyway, picking at the leaves with our teeth like animals, and I decided that some failures are still worth the attempt.

Our final evening, I didn't cook at all. We'd accumulated too much good stuff, cheese going soft in the fridge, salami drying slightly at the edges, bread that was proper bread and therefore already turning. I laid it all out on the patio table with olives and oil and the last of the wine, and we picked at it as the light faded and the pine trees turned to silhouettes. Dave looked at the cheese stain on the back seat of the car, still faintly visible, and raised his glass. "To Emilia-Romagna," he said. "Where even your disasters smell of Parmesan."

I think that might be the best review of a holiday I've ever given.