I have never been so relieved to see a kitchen as I was when we finally stumbled into our Breukelen holiday home just outside Utrecht. The train from Amsterdam had been straightforward enough, but my insistence that we could "easily" walk the last stretch from the station with our bags, a bottle of wine, and a wheel of Edam the size of a bowling ball proved, shall we say, misguided. The wheel of Edam did not survive the journey intact. It gained a small pebble collection and what I can only describe as an existential crisis. I carried it into the house like a wounded pet, cradling it against my jumper, while my partner photographed the entire humiliation for posterity.

The Breukelen itself, though, was an immediate comfort. A proper Dutch holiday home with beams that made me duck instinctively and windows that opened wide onto a garden still damp from recent rain. But it was the kitchen that truly saved the evening. Compact, yes, but equipped with everything a hungry, cheese-wounded traveller could need. Within an hour I had salvaged what I could of the Edam, hacked it into rough chunks, and arranged it on a plate with bread, pickles, and the emergency stroopwafels I had wisely packed in my hand luggage. We ate standing at the counter, too tired for the table, and declared it the finest meal we had eaten in days.

The following morning I woke with the particular hunger that only foreign supermarkets can inspire. We walked to the nearest Albert Heijn, which I had researched extensively and pronounced with entirely too much confidence. The locals, to their credit, did not visibly wince. I filled our basket with speculaas, thick yoghurt, eggs with impossibly orange yolks, and something called "ontbijtkoek" that I did not understand but absolutely required. Back at the Breukelen, I attempted a Dutch-style breakfast spread that sprawled across every available surface. The ontbijtkoek, it transpired, was a sort of spiced ginger cake meant for slicing thinly with butter. I had cut doorstop wedges and was eating it plain. My partner watched me chew through my third piece with the fascinated horror of someone witnessing a man discover fire, incorrectly.

Utrecht's food scene demanded proper exploration, of course. We walked the Oudegracht, that extraordinary canal with its medieval wharf cellars now housing cafes and restaurants at water level. I insisted on stopping at a bakery for warm appelflappen, which we ate on a bench overlooking the water, flakes of pastry decorating my jacket like edible dandruff. For lunch we found a tiny Indonesian takeaway, a remnant of colonial history that has gifted the Netherlands some of its finest everyday eating. I ordered rijsttafel without fully comprehending the scale of what would arrive, and spent twenty minutes arranging small bowls of satay, rendang, and pickled vegetables across our table while apologising to neighbouring diners for the territorial expansion.

The real test came with our self-catering ambitions. I had purchased Dutch asparagus, the white kind that signals spring and requires ceremonial treatment. The Breukelen's kitchen became my operating theatre. I peeled them with more concentration than I have applied to most professional tasks, boiled them with scientific precision, and served them with melted butter, boiled eggs, and ham. They were, against all my expectations, genuinely excellent. I photographed them from three angles. I considered framing the photograph. My partner noted that I had never shown such care with any vegetable in our shared domestic history, and wondered aloud whether I might transfer this energy to broccoli upon our return. I told her that broccoli had never inspired such reverence, and she could not argue.

Our final morning brought a visit to the Saturday market on Vredenburg. I bought cheese from a woman who let me sample six varieties before purchase, which I consider both generous and slightly dangerous given my demonstrated lack of restraint. I purchased a wedge of aged Boerenkaas that smelled like it had opinions, and a soft goat cheese wrapped in ash. These travelled home in my hand luggage, better protected than the Edam had been, though I checked their welfare with embarrassing frequency during the train journey back to Schiphol.

I left the Breukelen with a fuller stomach and a slightly fuller understanding of my own capacity for culinary obsession. The kitchen, modest as it was, had become the centre of the trip in a way I had not anticipated. I still have the photograph of those asparagus. I still cannot pronounce Albert Heijn correctly. Some holidays leave you changed in small, ridiculous ways, and I would not have it otherwise.