I have never been so relieved to see a caravan in my entire life. After three hours of driving from the Eurotunnel, convinced my sat nav had developed a personal vendetta against me, I finally rolled into Hulshorst in Gelderland with a hunger that could only be described as biblical. The mishap? I had spent the last forty-five minutes circling what I thought was the village, only to discover I had been stalking the perimeter of a rather aggressive-looking goat farm. The goats, I am fairly certain, were laughing at me.

The property itself was one of those proper Dutch holiday homes, all timber cladding and enormous windows that seemed to boast about the view. I stumbled out of the car, stretched my legs, and immediately made for the kitchen. Priorities. The previous occupants had left behind a solitary jar of speculoos spread, which I eyed with the kind of suspicion usually reserved for unmarked Tupperware. I spread some on a cracker I found at the bottom of my bag. It tasted of cinnamon and poor life choices, but it was food, and I was too famished to care.

The next morning, I drove the short distance to Harderwijk market, which sets up near the harbour on Saturdays. This was where my self-catering ambitions began in earnest. I bought cheese from a man who spoke exactly three words of English and communicated entirely through vigorous nodding. The cheese was aged, orange, and magnificent. I also acquired a loaf of ontbijtkoek, that dense spiced cake the Dutch eat for breakfast with alarming regularity. Back at the house, I attempted to construct a respectable lunch. The result was a plate of cheese, cake, and some tomatoes I had overestimated the ripeness of. I ate it standing at the kitchen counter, feeling simultaneously accomplished and slightly pathetic.

Determined to improve, I visited the local Albert Heijn in Nunspeet. There is something deeply humbling about foreign supermarkets. I spent twenty minutes in the condiment aisle alone, trying to decipher whether something was mustard or mayonnaise or some unholy hybrid of the two. I bought stroopwafels for obvious reasons, plus a packet of rookworst that I convinced myself I could turn into a proper evening meal. That night, I boiled potatoes, steamed some inexpertly chopped kale, and sliced the smoked sausage over the top. It was not stamppot in any recognisable sense, but it was warm, and it was mine, and I ate two portions while watching the light fade over the trees.

The following day, I found a farm shop just outside town selling eggs with actual straw still attached. I bought asparagus, because the Netherlands in late spring is essentially a national asparagus festival, and I felt obliged to participate. Back at the house, I attempted to make a risotto with these ingredients plus some stock cubes I had to crush with a wine bottle because the kitchen lacked a rolling pin. The risotto was crunchy in places. I told myself this was al dente. I told myself many things that evening.

By my final morning, I had accumulated an odd collection of leftovers: half a wheel of cheese, three stroopwafels held together by hope, some wilting herbs, and a tomato that had achieved sentience. I made a final breakfast of fried eggs, toasted ontbijtkoek, and cheese shavings, eaten on the deck with a coffee that I had finally learned to make using the slightly aggressive filter machine. A heron landed at the edge of the water. The goat farm was, thankfully, nowhere in sight.

I left Hulshorst fuller than I had arrived, though perhaps not wiser. My cooking had been ambitious, occasionally disastrous, and entirely my own. Some holidays are about restaurants and tasting menus. This one was about misreading labels, making do, and discovering that speculoos spread improves almost anything if you lower your standards sufficiently. I would do it again in a heartbeat. Though perhaps with a better map, and definitely with more cheese.