I have never been more grateful for a sat nav than I was driving from Catania airport towards Sant'Alfio, though I will say this: trusting it to find a "shortcut" through the foothills of Mount Etna was perhaps my first mistake of the holiday. My second was assuming I could navigate a hire car the size of a small boat down a lane designed, apparently, for donkeys and very determined goats. There was a moment, somewhere near a lemon grove, where I had to reverse forty yards because a nonna on a Vespa had simply stopped and folded her arms, waiting for me to admit defeat. I admitted it with enthusiasm.

The property itself, when I finally arrived with slightly trembling hands and a newfound respect for Sicilian grandmothers, was worth every white-knuckled moment. A converted farmhouse with thick stone walls and shutters that actually shut, it sat among vineyards with Etna sulking smokeily in the background like a grumpy relative at a wedding. My first impression, after the drama of arrival, was the smell: jasmine, warm earth, and something else I later identified as the neighbour's wood-fired oven, which would become both my obsession and my downfall.

I had grand plans for self-catering. I am, after all, a person who owns three cookbooks about Sicilian cuisine and has watched that Stanley Tucci programme twice. The kitchen at the property was encouragingly rustic, with terracotta tiles and a proper gas hob that roared like a jet engine. I unpacked my provisions from the market in nearby Linguaglossa with the confidence of a man who has absolutely no idea what he is doing.

The market had been my morning triumph. I had wandered through it with a wicker basket like some sort of Mediterranean fantasy, buying tomatoes that smelled actually tomatoey, a bulb of garlic the size of my fist, and anchovies from a man who called me "compare" and seemed disappointed by my life choices. The cheese stall alone required twenty minutes of my life I will never regret; I left with a wheel of ricotta salata, some pecorino that the vendor insisted was "piccante, molto piccante," and a firm promise to myself that I would learn Italian before my next visit.

My first evening's attempt at pasta alla Norma began with such optimism. The aubergines, sliced and salted, were behaving beautifully. The sauce simmered with those proper tomatoes and an alarming amount of garlic. Where it unravelled, I think, was my decision to make fresh pasta without a machine, using a wine bottle as a rolling pin because the property had everything except, apparently, that one specific thing. The result was less "silky ribbons" and more "rustic slabs," though I ate them with determination and perhaps too much of the local Etna Rosso I had purchased as "cooking wine."

Breakfast became my daily masterpiece, mostly because it required no actual cooking. Fresh ricotta from the same market, drizzled with honey I found in a jar at the property, alongside peaches so ripe they needed to be eaten over the sink. I developed a serious morning ritual of taking this outside with coffee, watching the neighbour feed his chickens, and pretending I lived here permanently. The fantasy lasted until I remembered I had a job and a flat in Croydon.

By day three I had abandoned elaborate recipes in favour of simplicity. Bruschetta with tomatoes so good they needed nothing but salt and oil. Grilled fish from the coast, though the drive to Riposto tested my nerves again. The local bakery in Sant'Alfio, a morning walk down a lane that now felt almost familiar, supplied bread that made me genuinely angry about British supermarkets. I carried loaves back like precious cargo, still warm, tearing pieces off before I reached the property gates.

My final evening, I attempted caponata. The neighbour's wood-fired oven had been taunting me all week, and I finally asked, through gestures and broken words, if I might use it. He agreed with the air of a man watching a child attempt something foolish. I burned the first batch slightly, the second less so, and by the third had produced something I would not be ashamed to serve. He tasted it, said "buono" with what I choose to believe was sincerity, and poured me wine from his own vines.

I left Sant'Alfio with a heavier suitcase, a lighter wallet from market spending, and the certain knowledge that my kitchen in Croydon would never smell as good as that farmhouse kitchen did at seven in the evening, something bubbling, something burning slightly, and the distant sound of a Vespa approaching to remind me that some shortcuts are worth taking after all.