I have never been so relieved to see a sheep as I was when we finally found our holiday cottage in Putten. The journey from the Eurotunnel had been straightforward enough until I decided, in my infinite wisdom, that I could "definitely remember" the final stretch without bothering to load the proper directions. Three wrong turns, one accidental tour of a farmyard, and a deeply unimpressed-looking horse later, there we were, parked beside what I initially thought was someone else's garden shed. It was not. It was, in fact, the charming little wooden cabin we had booked for the week, and that sheep was simply the neighbour popping over to judge my parking.

The mishap set the tone rather nicely. I am not, it turns out, a natural navigator. My partner knows this, the sheep now knows this, and within about twenty minutes the local supermarket staff would know this too when I returned for a second visit having forgotten olive oil the first time round.

But let me tell you about that supermarket, because it became the beating heart of our holiday. The Dirk in Putten town centre is not glamorous, but it is magnificent in its straightforward Dutch practicality. Rows of cheeses that smell properly of something, bread that actually goes stale by evening if you do not eat it, and vegetables that look like they were dug up that morning because they probably were. I stood in front of the meat counter for what felt like an embarrassing length of time, pointing at things and hoping for the best. The woman behind the counter was endlessly patient, suggesting klapstuk for a slow braise, which I later learned is a cut from near the rib. It transformed into the sort of stew that makes you feel genuinely pleased with yourself, even if you did spend forty minutes fretting over whether the hob was on the right setting.

The cabin's kitchen, as it happens, is perfectly designed for this sort of tentative self-catering. Compact but not cramped, with decent knives and enough pans to feel optimistic. I cooked that klapstuk with onions and bay leaves, served it with buttered potatoes and some inexpertly prepared red cabbage. We ate it at the little wooden table with the windows open, watching that same sheep wander past as if checking we had not burned the place down. The stew was rich and deeply comforting, the sort of food that makes you understand why the Dutch are not rushing their meals. They have the right idea.

Breakfast became a ritual I genuinely miss. The local bakery, Bakkerij van Dijk, does these almond-filled pastries called gevulde koeken that I became slightly obsessed with. I would cycle over each morning, pretending the exercise justified the butter content, and return with something warm in my bag. The coffee in the cabin was decent enough, but nothing compared to sitting outside with one of those pastries, watching the mist lift off the fields. I am not a morning person by nature, but greed is a powerful motivator.

The Putten weekly market, held on Tuesdays, was where my self-catering ambitions both peaked and somewhat collapsed. I went with elaborate plans: fresh fish, seasonal vegetables, perhaps something ambitious with Dutch asparagus. I returned with an enormous wheel of aged Edam, several types of stroopwafel, and some sausages I could not properly identify. The fishmonger had been too intimidating, the asparagus too expensive, and the cheese man simply too persuasive. We ate Edam on bread for lunch every day for four days, which sounds monotonous until you have tried proper aged Edam with a thin slick of good butter and a slice of tomato. It is perfection in its simplicity, and I will hear no arguments otherwise.

One evening, feeling adventurous, I attempted to make stamppot with rookworst from the market. For the uninitiated, this is mashed potato mixed with vegetables, topped with a smoked sausage. It is not sophisticated food. It is, however, extremely easy to do badly, as I proved by using too much milk and creating something closer to potato soup with kale floating in it. We ate it anyway, because hunger and self-respect are curious bedfellows, and because the rookworst itself was so genuinely delicious that it transcended my incompetence. My partner was kind about it. The sheep, visible through the window, seemed to judge me anew.

What I loved about eating in Putten was how it slowed everything down. There was no rushing to restaurants, no worrying about reservations or dress codes. Just the pleasure of cooking with ingredients that tasted of where they came from, of eating when we were actually hungry, of opening wine at four in the afternoon because why not, we were on holiday. The cabin had a small barbecue which we used twice, burning the first batch of chicken wings spectacularly because I was distracted by cheese, then nailing the second attempt with local pork ribs and a simple mustard marinade.

By the end of the week, my cycling route to the bakery required no thought. The supermarket staff greeted me with the resigned familiarity of people who had watched me mature from olive-oil-forgetter to regular customer. I had learned to ask for advice rather than point and hope, though my Dutch remained limited to "alstublieft" and "dank u wel" delivered with embarrassing enthusiasm.

On our final morning, I made one last trip for gevulde koeken, ate two in quick succession, and packed the remaining Edam in the car with the sort of care usually reserved for fragile heirlooms. We drove away past the sheep, who barely looked up this time, apparently satisfied that we had survived our own cooking. I have been home for three weeks now, and I still think about that klapstuk stew, about the misty mornings with almond pastry, about how a small mishap with directions led me to a week of genuinely wonderful, unpretentious eating. Some holidays are about what you see. This one was about what I ate, what I cooked, and what I gradually learned not to burn.