Last night, over dinner with some friends, I happened to mention how much I enjoyed cooking dinner during my recent vacation in London because of the freshness and quality of the produce. My announcement was met with astonishment, with the general consensus being that I was a glutton for punishment if I spent my evenings cooking while I was on holiday.

Well, what can I say? There is nothing I enjoy more than cooking when I am abroad, trying out new varieties of mushrooms, buying cuts of meat that I never find in India, and using condiments I haven’t even heard of before. I enjoy eating out at lunch – and occasionally at dinner as well – but there is nothing I find more satisfying than rustling up a tasty meal for my husband and myself on our nights in (when we are staying in a service apartment rather than a hotel room).

It all started many decades ago, when as a young journalist I spent a few weeks working in a media house in London. Not having enough money to eat out every day meant that I had to learn to feed myself using the tiny kitchen in the apartment I was staying in. I began by buying ready-meals and popping them into the microwave, graduated to boiling some pasta and eating it with bottled sauces, and when I got bored with my tiny repertoire of dishes, I began experimenting with fresh produce.

I would fry up some mushrooms with onions and garlic and pile them on buttered toast. I would boil some potatoes and make a nice German-style salad to go with sausages. I would buy vine-fresh tomatoes, slice them open, pour some olive oil over them, season with fresh herbs and Maldon salt and enjoy them with a nice piece of fish. I didn’t make too much effort because I was often tired after a day’s work, but even with minimal work, my meals became more memorable the more thought I put into them.

Ever since then, whenever I go abroad, my first stop is always the grocery store. If I don’t have a kitchen then I stock up on cold cuts and some Kettle chips and make a picnic of it in my hotel room. If I do have a kitchen, well then, I let my inner Domestic Goddess run wild.

I still remember one memorable trip to Tuscany, when I had just started learning Italian. My husband and I would spend days trawling through the vineyards sampling the wares on offer, but in the evenings, we would settle in the cosy kitchen of the villa we were staying in and cook our evening meal together. I still believe I learnt more Italian talking to the local stall-owners about artichokes, peppers, prawns, mozzarella and other ingredients and discussing how best to use them than I did in my regular evening Italian classes back home.

I still apply some of those lessons when I cook while on holiday. Last fortnight, in London, for example, I oven-roasted some colourful peppers with garlic, herbs and lots of olive oil, par-boiled some potatoes and quickly stir-fried them till they were golden and glorious. We ate them with Spanish-style sausages, washed down with red wine.

And that, to me, was the true taste of what a vacation should be like.

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