I should have known the holiday was going to be eventful when I tried to unlock the wrong front door. There we were, me and my partner, standing in the drizzle of a Styrian afternoon, jiggling a key that absolutely refused to turn, while I muttered increasingly unkind things about rental agencies. Turns out the house three doors down has a very similar colour scheme and an equally unhelpful cat staring at us from the windowsill. The actual property, when we finally found it, was up a slight incline with a view that instantly made the key fiasco worth it. Rolling vineyards, that particular green Austria does so well, and the sort of quiet that makes you realise how much noise your own brain normally makes.

The kitchen at the house became my immediate obsession. Not because I am any good in one, mind you. I am the sort of cook who can ruin a boiled egg through sheer overconfidence. But there was something about that space, all wooden surfaces and properly sharp knives, that made me want to try. The first evening we walked down to Ehrenhausen itself, a village that feels like it has not rushed for anything since about 1750. We found a Gasthaus where the landlord looked at us with the patient expression of a man who has seen many British tourists attempt to pronounce "Gulasch." I ordered it anyway, along with a beer that arrived in a glass the size of a small bucket. The goulash was dark and rich and nothing like the packet stuff I had attempted at university. My partner had Backhendl, which is essentially fancy fried chicken and absolutely no worse for that.

The next morning I insisted on the local market in Leibnitz, which is close enough to justify the trip and far enough to feel like an expedition. I bought vegetables with the enthusiasm of someone who has never successfully cooked an aubergine. There were tomatoes that actually smelled of tomatoes, bunches of herbs I could not identify, and a stall selling pumpkin seed oil that the vendor insisted I try on vanilla ice cream. I thought he was having me on. He was not. It is apparently a Styrian thing, and it is bizarrely delicious, nutty and slightly bitter against the sweetness. I bought a bottle that I immediately became paranoid about breaking in the car.

Back at the house I attempted a proper meal. This involved me making what I called a "rustic tart" and what my partner called "a bit of a mess, but edible." The local cheese helped, a hard number from a farm we had passed, and those actual-flavour tomatoes. I drank too much of the white wine we had picked up, a Welschriesling from a vineyard practically within walking distance. The kitchen had proper oven gloves, which I mention only because holiday rentals so often provide the sort of thin cloth that practically guarantees a burn.

We ate out again the following evening at a Heuriger, one of those wine taverns where they hang a bush outside to show they are open. Simple food, nothing clever, just plates of cold meats and spreads and bread that demands proper butter. I drank more wine than intended because the measures are generous and the atmosphere makes you forget about tomorrow. Someone was playing an accordion, not in an ironic way, just because that is what happens there.

By the end of the week I had cooked three meals that went reasonably well and one absolute disaster involving dumplings that dissolved into soup. We ate the disaster anyway, because waste feels wrong when the ingredients are that good. On our last morning I made a final market trip for bread and ham and that cheese again, and we ate breakfast looking out at those vineyards with the satisfied fullness of people who have done very little and eaten very well. I left the pumpkin seed oil in the cupboard by accident. I am still annoyed about that.