I should have known the holiday was going to be eventful when I tried to unlock the wrong Magione. There we were, after a three-hour drive from Rome through increasingly ridiculous Tuscan-Umbrian scenery, standing on the doorstep of what I was absolutely convinced was our place. Key fob? Beeping away happily. Door? Not budging. I was just about to kick it in frustration when a very confused Italian man appeared at the window and gestured at the house number. We'd gone to 43 instead of 43A. The A was hidden behind a rather aggressive-looking rosemary bush. My partner found this hilarious. I did not, though I laughed about it roughly four minutes later over a restorative espresso in Magione village.

The actual property, when we finally found it, was exactly the sort of thing that makes you forgive yourself for being a complete idiot. A converted farmhouse with a pool, surrounded by olive groves that stretched out like someone had painted them. The kitchen, though. That was what mattered. I'd done my research. Umbria is the stomach of Italy, the place where Tuscans supposedly sneak off to eat properly without the tourists watching. I had plans. Grand, ambitious plans involving truffles and wild boar and me finally learning to make pasta that didn't look like surgical tubing.

Our first evening, we did the sensible thing and walked into Magione proper, about fifteen minutes along a road that made me very glad I'd packed shoes with actual grip. We found a tiny osteria where the owner explained the menu by pointing at things and shrugging, which I took as encouragement. We ate umbricelli, these thick, hand-rolled pasta strands that clung to a wild boar ragu like they were afraid of heights. The owner kept bringing us tastes of local wine, each time with a longer explanation that we understood perhaps forty percent of. By the third glass I was nodding with what I believed was profound comprehension. My partner later informed me I'd agreed to something involving his cousin and a goat. We're still not sure what.

The next morning I was up early, determined to cook properly. The local market in Magione runs on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and I approached it with the focused intensity of someone who has watched far too many cooking programmes. I bought pecorino that smelled like it could get up and walk away. I bought porcini mushrooms that looked like they'd been plucked from a fairy tale, slightly worrying ones. I bought olive oil from a man who pressed it himself and made me taste it from a tiny plastic cup like we were doing shots. I bought far too much of everything, carried it back in a bag that disintegrated dramatically halfway up the drive, and spent twenty minutes chasing rolling tomatoes through gravel.

My attempt at reproducing that wild boar ragu was, I will be honest, a humbling experience. The kitchen had everything I needed except apparently the basic competence I'd assumed I possessed. The porcini went in too early. The garlic burned while I was wrestling with the packaging on some local sausage I'd impulse-bought. At one point I was googling "can you rescue bitter ragu" while my partner made diplomatic noises from the next room. We ate it anyway, sitting outside with the crickets and the last of the proper wine, and somewhere around the third glass it tasted absolutely perfect. Or perfect enough.

By day four I'd developed a routine. Morning market for whatever looked interesting, often things I couldn't identify and had to ask about using increasingly elaborate charades. Afternoon attempting to cook them while the pool waited patiently. Evening either my own increasingly competent efforts or giving up entirely and finding somewhere local with a wood-fired oven. There's a pizzeria near Lake Trasimeno, still within easy wandering distance, where they do a white pizza with local truffles that made me genuinely emotional. I may have teared up slightly. The heat, I claimed. Definitely the heat.

I did eventually manage pasta that didn't shame my ancestors. On our last morning I made a simple cacio e pepe with that walking pecorino, and it actually worked. The pepper was local, rough and fragrant. The cheese melted into something silky rather than stringy. I stood in that farmhouse kitchen, olive groves outside the window, and felt briefly like I understood something about why people fall completely in love with this part of the world. It's not the views, though they're ridiculous. It's not the history, though it's everywhere. It's the way a place can teach you, slowly and with much burnt garlic, that good food doesn't need to be complicated. Just honest, local, and eaten without too much fuss.

We left the leftover olive oil in the car and spent the entire drive to the airport worrying about it staining everything. It didn't. Some things, apparently, work out fine even when you're not entirely sure what you're doing.