I have never been more grateful for a sat nav than I was driving up to Lagolo in Tyrol, mostly because mine had apparently decided to have a small breakdown of its own. There I was, winding through the Zillertal Valley with the window down, absolutely convinced I was taking the scenic route, when the thing suddenly announced I had arrived at my destination. I had not. I was in a farmyard. A very lovely farmyard, admittedly, with an extremely judgmental looking cow, but not the holiday home I had booked. Twenty minutes of increasingly tight turns and muttered apologies to oncoming tractors later, I finally found the actual place, perched up with views that almost made the detour worth it. Almost.

The first thing I did after unloading the car was check the kitchen, because I had big plans for this holiday. Big, ambitious, slightly delusional plans. Lagolo had one of those proper Austrian kitchens, all wood and efficiency, and I had brought a notebook full of recipes I intended to conquer. The local supermarket in Hippach, just down the road, became my second home within about two days. The first morning I marched in there full of purpose, determined to cook a proper Tiroler Grostl, and came out with about six times more speck than any reasonable person needs. The butcher looked at me with what I can only describe as professional concern. I smiled back with the confidence of someone who absolutely did not know what they were doing.

That first attempt at Grostl was, to be charitable, a learning experience. I had the potatoes, I had the onions, I had enough speck to feed a small village, but somehow the timing went wrong and everything ended up simultaneously underdone and slightly burnt. I ate it anyway, standing at the kitchen window with a beer, watching the mountains go pink in the evening light. There are worse ways to fail at cooking. The beer, a Zillertal brew from the supermarket's surprisingly decent selection, helped considerably.

By day three I had discovered the bakery in Hippach, which opens at some ungodly hour that only farmers and overeager holidaymakers manage. Their pretzels became my morning ritual, still warm if you timed it right, and I started bringing them back to Lagolo to eat on the little balcony with coffee and absolutely no plans. The coffee situation had taken some figuring out too. I had brought my usual instant, then felt so judged by the proper moka pot sitting in the kitchen that I bought actual beans from a little shop in Mayrhofen and spent twenty minutes one morning grinding them with a machine I did not fully understand. The resulting brew was strong enough to wake the dead. I drank three cups and cleaned the entire kitchen before nine in the morning.

The local pubs and gasthofs became my evening salvation, partly because I needed a break from my own cooking and partly because Austrians actually know what they are doing with food. The first place I tried, walking distance from Lagolo if you do not mind a bit of uphill, did a kasnocken that made me genuinely angry at my own attempts. Cheese dumplings should not be that good. The portion was enormous, served in a pan that could have doubled as a satellite dish, and I ate every last bit while making small talk with a local who seemed deeply amused by my enthusiasm. He recommended another place, and then another, and before I knew it I had a little circuit of dependable dinner spots that saved me from myself.

There was the gasthof with the terrace where I ate schnitzel in the rain under a hastily erected umbrella, feeling deeply smug about my life choices. There was the slightly more modern place in Mayrhofen where I had apfelstrudel that ruined all other desserts for me permanently. There was the evening I attempted to cook for myself again, got as far as chopping an onion, and simply walked to the pub instead. No regrets.

The market in Mayrhofen, on certain mornings, became my weekend treat. I would drive down early, before the proper crowds arrived, and wander between stalls of local honey and cheese and vegetables that actually looked like vegetables. I bought a jar of honey from a man who explained at length about his bees, understood perhaps thirty percent of it, and nodded enthusiastically throughout. That honey went on everything for the rest of the week. Porridge, bread, a slightly desperate spoonful straight from the jar when I got peckish at midnight. I have no regrets about any of it.

My final attempt at proper cooking came on the last night. I had accumulated various ingredients from the market, some leftover speck from that first ambitious shop, and a determination to redeem myself. The result was actually edible, which felt like a genuine triumph until I realised I had spent approximately four times what a pub dinner would have cost and created something merely okay. I sat there eating my mediocre creation, looking out at the mountains I had come to love, and laughed at myself properly for the first time in ages. There is something humbling about failing at something you thought would be simple, and something wonderful about not really minding.

I went to the pub for pudding, obviously. Some things are best left to professionals.