I should have known the holiday was going to be interesting when I managed to pack three bottles of olive oil and forget my own trousers. There I was at Stansted at five in the morning, clutching a rucksack full of condiments like some sort of deluded celebrity chef, wearing the same jeans I'd slept in. My partner just shook his head and bought a coffee large enough to qualify as carry-on luggage.

The flight to Valencia was mercifully short, though I spent most of it worrying whether the olive oil would survive the baggage handlers' enthusiasm. We collected our hire car and headed south toward Torrevieja, the satnav confidently directing us through orange groves and past roadside stalls selling enormous watermelons. I was already planning meals in my head, mentally assembling paellas from ingredients I hadn't even bought yet.

The property itself was one of those white-washed holiday homes with a terrace that practically demanded you sit on it with a glass of something cold. I dumped my precious olive oil on the kitchen counter and immediately opened every cupboard to inspect the cookware. Two frying pans, one slightly warped. A saucepan with a handle that wobbled ominously. I felt a familiar thrill. This was going to be a challenge.

By late afternoon, hunger had overridden my desire to unpack properly. We walked into the town centre, following our noses toward the Mercado Municipal. I have a terrible habit of getting overexcited in foreign food markets, and this was no exception. Within twenty minutes I'd bought enough produce to feed a small village: tomatoes that actually smelled of tomatoes, fat green peppers, a hunk of Manchego that the vendor let me sample until I felt slightly guilty, and some dried beans I had absolutely no plan for but couldn't resist. My partner had to physically remove me from a stall selling Iberico ham, where I was contemplating a purchase that would have blown our entire eating budget.

That first evening, I attempted something simple. Pan con tomate, grilled sardines from the fishmonger near the harbour, a salad that was mostly just those incredible tomatoes torn apart with my hands and dressed with one of my smuggled olive oils. The sardines stuck to the warped pan despite my best efforts, and I set off the smoke alarm twice. We ate on the terrace as the sun went down, picking little crispy bits of fish skin off the grill pan with our fingers, drinking a three-euro bottle of red that tasted like it should have cost considerably more.

The next morning I was up early, determined to master the local breakfast. I walked to a nearby bakery for fresh bread, then attempted to recreate the tomato-rubbing technique I'd watched a man perform with such effortless grace at a bar the previous afternoon. Mine looked like I'd attacked it. The bread was unevenly saturated, tomato pulp dripping onto the counter. It tasted magnificent anyway, especially with the Manchego shaved over the top and a strong coffee made in the tiny stovetop pot I'd found at the back of a cupboard.

By day three, I'd developed a routine. Morning market, afternoon attempt at some local dish, evening apology to my partner for the state of the kitchen. I tried making authentic paella on the outdoor grill, which resulted in a delicious but structurally unsound creation that was more "scattered rice with things" than the proud social dish I'd imagined. I attempted fideua with noodles I wasn't entirely sure were the right sort. I made a tortilla that was runny in the middle, exactly as I like it, though my partner suspiciously requested his "well done" after the first slice.

The Mercado became my second home. I learned which stallholders would slip me an extra fig or let me sniff their melons for ripeness. I discovered that the fishmonger near the back would clean squid beautifully if you asked nicely, and that the spice stall sold proper saffron in tiny precious envelopes rather than the suspicious red dust I'd encountered at home. I bought rabbit for a paella valenciana and spent an unpleasant half-hour butchering it with a knife that had seen better decades, talking to myself in a mixture of English and misremembered Spanish phrases.

One evening, exhausted from a particularly ambitious attempt at arroz negro that had dyed my hands and several kitchen surfaces an alarming shade of black, we abandoned self-catering entirely and found a local restaurant tucked down a side street. I ordered things I couldn't have made myself, watching the kitchen through a doorway, trying to decode techniques. The owner, an elderly woman with formidable eyebrows, caught me staring and brought me an extra portion of her mother's almond cake, perhaps out of pity, perhaps because she recognised a fellow obsessive.

I left Torrevieja with my clothes smelling permanently of garlic, a new appreciation for proper paella pans, and a suitcase containing emergency supplies of that saffron and yet another bottle of olive oil. My partner had to remind me that British customs might have questions about the four kilos of Spanish tomatoes I'd briefly considered smuggling home. Some holiday habits, it seems, are harder to shake than others.