I have never been so happy to see a lemon in my entire life. There I was, standing in the car hire queue at Palma airport, rucksack on, full of that particular optimism you get at the start of a holiday, when I realised with a slow, cold dread that I had left our entire bag of groceries on the kitchen table in Leeds. The olives. The chorizo. The decent olive oil I had smugly decanted into a travel bottle. All of it. Sat there probably judging me. My partner gave me that look. You know the one. The "I love you but honestly" look. I promised to make it up with spectacular local food, and bless him, he believed me.

The drive to Fornalutx took about forty minutes, winding up through the Serra de Tramuntana with the sort of views that make you forget your own name, let alone your incompetence. We rounded a bend and there it was, this honey-coloured village clinging to the mountainside like it had grown there organically. Our place, a traditional stone house with a terrace that looked down over orange groves and terraced hills, immediately made the forgotten chorizo feel like a distant, embarrassing memory.

The kitchen, I should say, was a proper kitchen. Not one of those holiday let setups with a blunt knife and a pan that has seen things. This had terracotta tiles, decent cookware, and most importantly, space to actually cook. I stood in it feeling simultaneously excited and slightly fraudulent. I had talked up my "Mallorcan feast" plans for the entire flight. Now I had to deliver, and I had nothing but a tube of travel toothpaste and some airport cashews.

We dumped our bags and did the only sensible thing: walked into the village to find food immediately. Fornalutx is tiny, barely more than a cluster of lanes and a square, but it has a small shop that sells essentials and local produce. I bought sobrassada, that soft, spreadable Mallorcan sausage that looks slightly alarming but tastes like heaven. Some local cheese. Bread that was still warm. A bottle of wine that the shopkeeper recommended with a gesture that suggested he knew I needed it. We sat on our terrace and ate it all with our fingers like absolute animals, watching the light change over the mountains, and I felt genuinely emotional about how good it was.

The next morning I was up early, determined to redeem myself properly. The Fornalutx market happens on Sundays, small but serious, and I arrived with an empty bag and ambitious plans. I bought tomatoes that actually smelled of tomatoes, which feels rarer than it should. Local almonds, because Mallorca does almonds properly. Fresh herbs from a woman who grew them on her own terrace. I spent far too long choosing between different olive oils, eventually buying one that the seller let me taste from a little cup, and I understood immediately why people get evangelical about this stuff.

Back at the house, I attempted a proper Mallorcan lunch. I made pa amb oli, that simple but perfect bread with tomato rubbed into it, drizzled with my fancy oil, topped with sobrassada and cheese. I tried to make tumbet, the vegetable gratin, and learned that slicing potatoes thinly enough without a mandoline is an act of either patience or masochism. Mine were slightly chunky. It did not matter. We ate it on the terrace with more of that wine, and my partner said it was good, and I chose to believe him.

The self-catering rhythm of the week became something I genuinely loved. Mornings meant coffee outside, then a walk to buy fresh bread from the bakery in Soller, just down the valley. That bakery became my religion. I would arrive as the ensaimadas were still warm, those coiled, sugar-dusted pastries that flake everywhere and make you look like you have been in a minor icing incident. I ate one on the walk back every single day, no exceptions, no regrets.

I attempted to cook fish one evening, buying some gleaming fresh catch from a market in Soller port. I had grand plans. What I produced was edible, technically, but I had been too timid with it, too worried about overcooking. It was fine. We ate it with a simple salad and laughed about my caution, about how holiday cooking should be braver than that. The next time, I was braver. Still not brilliant, but braver.

The terrace became our restaurant, our kitchen, our living room. We ate breakfast there in pyjamas with messy hair and no judgement. We ate lunch there with wine at two in the afternoon because we could. We ate dinner there as the village went quiet and the stars came out with an intensity that city life makes you forget is possible. I cooked things I had never cooked before, made mistakes, made things that worked, and slowly filled the kitchen with the evidence of actual use: stained wooden spoons, a collection of half-used herbs, a patina of olive oil on everything.

By the end of the week, I had stopped mourning the abandoned Leeds chorizo entirely. The sobrassada was better anyway. The oil was better. The tomatoes, the bread, the wine, the whole rhythm of buying fresh and cooking simply, it had become something I did not want to stop. On our last morning, I made one final pa amb oli and ate it slowly, deliberately, trying to memorise the taste of tomatoes that actually taste of something, of bread with proper chew, of oil that makes you close your eyes.

We left the leftover sobrassada for the next guests, along with the good olive oil and a note that just said "buy the ensaimadas early." It felt like passing on a secret. Like a small, edible inheritance. I have thought about that kitchen, that terrace, those meals, more than I have thought about any restaurant I have ever been to. I still have not forgiven myself for the forgotten groceries, mind. But Mallorca fed me better than I deserved, and I am genuinely grateful.