I'd packed the car like a game of Tetris played by someone who's never seen a straight line, convinced I'd forgotten something crucial but unable to face unpacking it all to check. Three hours from the ferry, winding through Dutch countryside that looked suspiciously like a flattened version of the Cotswolds, my partner announced she needed the loo. I spotted a petrol station, performed a manoeuvre that would have failed my driving test twice over, and only realised once we'd stopped that I'd filled the tank with petrol when the hire company had specifically said diesel. There we stood, somewhere near Zwolle, laughing in that slightly hysterical way you do when you've just made an expensive mistake and the holiday hasn't even begun.

The breakdown service took two hours, during which I ate three stroopwafels from the shop and developed an intimate relationship with a vending machine coffee that tasted of regret. By the time we reached Ommen, I'd convinced myself the entire trip was cursed.

Then the property appeared down a narrow lane, all timber framing and proper Dutch steepness, and something in my chest unclenched. The key was in the lockbox, the door opened with a satisfying thunk, and I stepped into a kitchen that immediately made me want to cook something ambitious and probably ruin it.

The previous guests had left behind a jar of speculaas spice and a note wishing us luck. I took this as a sign and decided we'd eat in that first night, despite having no food and a supermarket closing in forty minutes. We dashed to the Jumbo in town, where I grabbed ingredients with the desperate randomness of a man who'd last planned a meal in 2019. Pork belly, apples, potatoes, a cabbage that weighed more than my carry-on, and something called "ontbijtkoek" that I mistook for bread.

Back at the cottage, I discovered the oven had no markings on the dials, just mysterious symbols that might have been cooking temperatures or possibly ancient runes. I roasted the pork at what I hoped was 160 degrees, sliced the apples with more optimism than skill, and made a hash of the potatoes that was actually just hash browns by accident. The cabbage I abandoned after realising I had no idea how long it takes to become edible. We ate at half past ten, the pork somehow both raw and burnt, the apples collapsed into something like sauce, and I felt genuinely proud of this disaster.

The next morning I walked into Ommen proper, found the Saturday market on the Vrijthof, and bought cheese from a man who spoke better English than I do and looked disappointed in my selections. I chose an aged Boerenkaas that smelled like feet in the best possible way, some young Gouda that didn't, and bread from a bakery where the woman patiently explained that "ontbijtkoek" is cake, you eat it with butter, not with soup, why would I think that?

I ate it with butter for breakfast, then with cheese for lunch, then broke off pieces while staring into the fridge wondering what to make for dinner. The cottage had a proper stove, copper pans hanging like trophies, and I became obsessed with using them all. I made stamppot on Sunday, mashing potatoes with kale until my arm ached, frying rookworst until it split and the smoky juice ran into everything. It was too salty, too heavy, exactly what I needed after a walk along the Vecht that left me muddy and smug.

Monday I attempted pannenkoeken for lunch, having watched a YouTube video once in 2017. The first one stuck to the pan, the second I flipped too early, the third I ate straight from the pan standing at the stove, burning my mouth and not caring. My partner had one proper one with bacon and syrup, pronounced it "acceptable," and I felt like I'd won something.

The local butcher became my friend, though he didn't know it. I bought sausages I couldn't name, meat for stews I never quite executed properly, bacon that I fried until it shattered. I filled the cottage with cooking smells that lingered in the timber beams, became part of the place, made it feel briefly like mine.

On our final morning I made coffee in the stovetop pot, sat at the kitchen table with the last of the cheese, the final slice of ontbijtkoek, and watched mist rise off the fields. I'd cooked badly, mostly, eaten well, somehow, and learned that a kitchen in a strange place can make you feel at home faster than almost anything. I left the speculaas spice for the next guests, with a note that simply said "good luck," which felt like the most honest thing I'd written in years.