I should have known the holiday was going to be eventful when I got my suitcase stuck in the train door at Olsztyn. There I was, one leg on the platform, one still on the carriage, yanking at a wheelie bag that had developed a sudden ambition to see Warsaw without me. A very patient Polish man eventually freed it with a decisive tug, and I arrived in Mikolajki slightly flushed, slightly sheepish, and absolutely starving.

The walk from the station to our little holiday home took about ten minutes, winding past the marina where proper yachts bobbed alongside fishing boats that looked older than my grandmother. I had promised myself I would not think about work, would not check emails, would instead embrace the simple pleasures of Masurian lake life. This noble intention lasted precisely until I opened the fridge at the property and found it completely empty except for a half-empty jar of pickled herring left by some previous guest with either terrible manners or excellent taste.

The kitchen, I quickly decided, would be my domain. I had visions of myself as some sort of lakeside domestic goddess, preparing hearty Polish feasts from local ingredients while swans drifted past the window. Reality arrived the next morning at the Mikolajki market, which I had imagined as a bustling emporium of artisanal produce and instead found to be three stalls, two of which sold identical knitted slippers, and one run by a woman called Halina who definitely judged my pronunciation of "pierogi."

I bought what I believed were cooking apples. They were not cooking apples. They were some variety of crab apple that turned my attempted tart into something with the structural integrity of wet cardboard and a flavour profile best described as "aggressive." My partner ate two slices with the determined expression of someone who has recently promised to love me in sickness and in health. We threw the rest to some very confused ducks.

The local shops proved more forgiving than my own ambition. A small grocery near the harbour sold excellent kielbasa, dense rye bread that could genuinely serve as a building material, and butter so yellow it looked radioactive. I made respectable sandwiches. I made adequate scrambled eggs. I made one genuinely good soup from a packet of dried mushrooms that Halina had thrust into my hands with what I now recognise was profound pity.

We did venture out to eat twice, though I am almost embarrassed to admit it given my self-catering manifesto. A restaurant on the waterfront served zander from the lake, simply fried with butter and lemon, and it was so good I felt personally affronted that my own cooking had not achieved this. The second place, more of a bar with pretensions, produced a placki ziemniaczane that was essentially a potato pancake the size of a dinner plate, topped with goulash that made my eyes water in ways I choose to believe were emotional.

By the final evening, I had settled into a comfortable rhythm. I was never going to be the person who transformed local ingredients into transcendent meals. I was, however, someone who could now reliably fry an egg in butter without setting off the smoke alarm, someone who understood that the small supermarket's fresh curd cheese needed nothing more than a drizzle of honey and some patience. I prepared a simple supper of bread, sausage, cheese, and tomatoes that actually tasted of something, eaten on the little terrace as the light went soft over the lake.

The half-empty herring jar remained in the fridge, a silent witness to my culinary hubris. I did not open it. Some holiday mysteries are better left unsolved.