I have always believed that the truest measure of a holiday is not the view from your window but what ends up on your plate. So when my partner and I set off for a week in a self-catering flat in Cassino, Lazio, our heads were already full of pasta, porchetta, and perhaps an impractical amount of local cheese. We were, I should confess from the start, far too optimistic about our own abilities in a foreign kitchen.

The drive down from Rome should have taken ninety minutes. It took nearer three, partly because Italian motorways demand a coffee stop every hour by unwritten law, and partly because I managed to misread our sat nav with the confidence of a man who once got lost in his own local Tesco. We ended up winding through some village near Aquino that definitely was not on our route, where an elderly gentleman in a flat cap pointed us back toward the autostrada with the weary patience of someone who had redirected countless hapless Britons before us. I smiled and waved like the tourist I so clearly was.

By the time we reached the property, the sun had begun its lazy descent behind the hills, and our stomachs were making noises that can only be described as socially unacceptable. The flat itself was simple and spotless, with a kitchen that looked perfectly adequate until I actually opened the cupboards and realised I had no idea what half the utensils were for. There was a curious metal object I later learned was for making coffee the proper way, and a terrifyingly large knife that I decided was best left alone. My partner, ever practical, suggested we find food immediately rather than attempt to cook in our delirious state.

We walked into central Cassino, which took about twenty minutes, and found a small trattoria near the main piazza. I ordered cacio e pepe with the pronunciation of a man trying very hard and failing very publicly. The waiter, bless him, pretended not to notice. The pasta arrived in a portion that would have fed a small family, heavy with pecorino and cracked black pepper, and I ate it with the desperate joy of someone who had not had a proper meal since breakfast somewhere outside Frosinone. My partner had a pizza bianca with rosemary and potatoes, which sounds wrong until you taste it and understand that the Italians have simply figured things out better than the rest of us.

The next morning, determined to embrace the self-catering life, we found the local market. It was not large, perhaps two dozen stalls in a modest square, but it contained everything I have ever wanted. There were tomatoes that actually smelled of tomatoes, which I realise now is a revelation that should not be a revelation. There was fresh ricotta, still wet in its container, and strings of sausages that the vendor would cut to whatever length you requested. I bought far too much, as I always do when confronted with abundance, and carried my paper bags back to the flat like trophies.

That evening I attempted to cook. I had planned something simple: pasta with a basic tomato sauce, perhaps some of the local sausage crumbled through it. What I produced was edible, technically, but the tomatoes refused to break down properly and the garlic went from raw to bitter in what felt like seconds. My partner was kind about it, which somehow made it worse. I found myself reflecting, as I scraped the remains into the bin, that I had spent years watching cooking programmes without ever actually learning to cook. There is a particular humiliation in failing at something simple in a country where grandmothers produce miracles with the same ingredients.

By midweek I had developed a routine. Mornings at the market, afternoons attempting to replicate what I had eaten in restaurants, evenings admitting defeat and walking back into town for a proper meal. We found a place near the base of the monastery road that did a polpette al sugo I still think about, the meatballs soft and yielding in a sauce that tasted of long afternoons and patience. I asked the owner, in my halting Italian, what the secret was. He shrugged and said "tempo," which means time, and I understood that this was both an explanation and a gentle accusation.

Our final night, I made a simple frittata with market eggs and the last of our cheese. It was not sophisticated, but it was good, or at least good enough. We ate it on the small balcony with a bottle of local white wine that had cost less than a London sandwich, and I felt genuinely proud of this modest achievement. My partner raised her glass to me, and I understood that sometimes the holiday is not about becoming someone new but about accepting your limitations with good humour and decent company.

I left Cassino with a fuller stomach, a slightly expanded Italian vocabulary, and a renewed respect for anyone who can make a proper soffritto without burning it. Some holidays change your life. This one simply changed my relationship with my own incompetence, and fed me extremely well in the process.