I'd driven through three countries to reach our little paasloo in Overijssel, and by the time we crossed into the Netherlands I was already fantasising about my first proper Dutch meal. The satnav had other ideas. Somewhere near Zwolle it sent me down a farm track that ended in a field of extremely judgmental cows, and I had to reverse half a mile while my partner read the map upside down and my stomach made noises that frankly embarrassed us both.

We finally found the place down a proper lane near Paasloo itself, and I practically fell out of the car sniffing the air like a bloodhound. The paasloo was exactly the sort of snug, timber-framed affair you'd hope for in this part of Overijssel - all dark beams and whitewash, with a kitchen that looked like it meant business. I dumped the bags and made straight for the fridge, which was empty apart from a lonely jar of mustard left by some previous soul. This would not do. This would not do at all.

The nearest proper shop was in Steenwijk, about fifteen minutes away, and I drove there with the urgency of a man who hasn't eaten since a soggy service station panini in Germany. The supermarket was a revelation. I filled two baskets with local cheeses - the aged Boerenkaas, a young Gouda that squeaked between your teeth - and proper rookworst, and thick-cut bacon that actually looked like it came from a pig rather than a chemistry set. I may have got slightly carried away. My partner suggested, gently, that we were only staying a week and the fridge wasn't industrial sized. I bought the smoked eel as well, because when in Rome, and because the woman behind the counter looked at me with such disappointment when I hesitated.

Back at the paasloo, I attempted my first self-catering triumph: stamppot. How hard could mashed potatoes with vegetables be? Very hard, apparently, if you get overexcited about the smoked sausage and add it too early, so it dissolves into pinkish flecks throughout the potato like some kind of meat confetti. It tasted magnificent anyway, eaten at the kitchen table with too much butter and a beer from the local Gall and Gall, watching the light fade over the fields. The failure was entirely in the aesthetics.

The next morning I was up early, determined to redeem myself at the market in Blokzijl. This tiny harbour town punches well above its weight for food, and I wandered the stalls with a coffee in one hand and an oliebol in the other, getting powdered sugar down my jacket like a toddler. I bought fresh herring from a van, still stiff with cold, and the man showed me the proper Dutch way of holding it by the tail and lowering it into your mouth. I managed this with the grace of a pelican swallowing a fish, but by heaven it was good - silky and salty and nothing like the pickled stuff we get at home.

That evening I cooked again, more carefully this time. Simple pan-fried plaice from the market, with new potatoes and a butter sauce I didn't curdle through sheer force of will. We ate it in the little garden as the swallows went mad overhead, and I felt genuinely proud in a way that no restaurant meal has ever made me feel. There's something about cooking in a strange kitchen, with ingredients you've hunted down yourself, that connects you to a place in a way sightseeing never quite manages.

I did make one more pilgrimage, to a farm shop near Giethoorn that sold its own ice cream. The woman there spoke no English and my Dutch extends to "alstublieft" and "dank u wel," but we communicated through the universal language of pointing at flavours and enthusiastic nodding. I got the speculoos. It was so good I ate it walking back to the car, using the tiny wooden spoon, getting caramelised biscuit crumbs down the same jacket that already bore the oliebol evidence of my market crimes.

By the end of the week, my partner noted that I'd become one of those people who plans their day entirely around meals and the acquisition of food. She wasn't wrong. We'd done the walks, seen the thatched roofs, nodded at the cows who'd witnessed my earlier humiliation. But what I'll remember is the morning market in Blokzijl, the failed stamppot, the perfect plaice, and the strange satisfaction of making a kitchen in a Dutch paasloo feel briefly, butter-slickedly, like my own.