I should have known the holiday was going to be eventful when I got us lost before we'd even left Calais. Sat-nav confidently announced we'd arrived at our destination while we were parked outside a tractor dealership somewhere near Reims. My partner gave me that look, the one that says "you promised you'd sorted this," and I smiled brightly and blamed the French road signs, which felt like a solid diplomatic move.

Three hours later than planned, we finally rolled into Gerardmer in the Vosges mountains of Lorraine. The lake appeared through the trees like something from a postcard someone had exaggerated, all glassy water and pine-covered hills. Our holiday home sat on a slope above the town, a proper wooden chalet-style place with a balcony that practically demanded evening wine. I unloaded the car with theatrical exhaustion, promptly dropped a bag of groceries down the stairs, and watched a wheel of local Munster cheese make a break for freedom across the gravel. We rescued it, brushed it off, and agreed that a bit of grit added character.

The kitchen became our headquarters. That first evening, still half-delirious from the drive, I attempted what I called "rustic Lorraine cooking." The supermarket in town had yielded smoked bacon, local potatoes, and a bottle of Mirabelle plum liqueur that the cashier seemed impressed I'd found. I fried the bacon with more enthusiasm than skill, set off the smoke alarm, and served something between a tartiflette and a cry for help. My partner was kind about it. We ate on that balcony with the cheese, now properly washed, and the liqueur, and decided that culinary disasters tasted better with mountain air.

Morning meant the market. Gerardmer's Saturday market along the lakefront became my obsession. I'd wake early, slightly smug about it, and return with paper bags of things I couldn't quite name. There was a woman selling farmhouse cheeses with labels handwritten in looping script, and a grumpy man with excellent saucisson who never smiled but always threw in an extra slice to try. I bought honey from a beekeeper who talked for twenty minutes about his hives while I nodded earnestly, understanding perhaps every fourth word. The honey tasted of pine and something wild, and I drizzled it on everything for days.

The local brasseries saved us from my cooking experiments. We found one near the lake with checked tablecloths and a menu that hadn't changed in decades. The patronne recommended the quiche Lorraine with the authority of someone who'd eaten thousands, and she was right, it was the proper thing, all custard and lardons with none of the nonsense supermarkets add. We drank crisp Vosges beer and watched families promenade around the water. Another evening, we discovered a slightly rougher place up a side street where old men played cards and the plat du jour was always whatever the chef fancied. I ordered andouillette once, that distinctive sausage, and spent the meal in a state of respectful confusion, not sure if I loved it or was being taught a lesson about regional pride.

My cooking improved marginally. By midweek I'd mastered a decent omelette with the local cheese, and one triumphant afternoon I produced a clafoutis with cherries from the market that actually looked like the picture in my head. We photographed it like proud parents. The next day I burned a tarte flambee to charcoal, because hubris, and we laughed so hard we cried and ordered pizza from a place near the tourist office that did surprisingly good flammenkueche anyway.

The baker became my morning ritual. Each day I'd walk down for croissants still warm, and a pain au chocolat for my partner, and we'd eat them with terrible coffee I'd made in the chalet's slightly aggressive machine. By the end of the week the baker greeted me like an old friend, or possibly like a predictable creature of habit, which amounts to the same thing really.

On our final evening, we splashed out at a slightly smarter restaurant with a terrace overlooking the lake. I had trout from local streams, simply done with butter and almonds, and my partner had a duck breast with Mirabelle sauce that made us both quiet with appreciation. We talked about coming back, about how we'd cook properly next time, knowing we absolutely wouldn't. The cheese, or its successor, came out with the local eau de vie, and I felt that particular holiday sadness of things ending mixed with gratitude that they'd happened at all.

Driving away, slightly hungover, slightly heavier, I caught my partner smiling at the wheel. "Best worst navigator," she said, and I couldn't argue. We'd eaten magnificently, mostly thanks to other people, and that seemed exactly right for a place that takes such quiet pride in feeding strangers well.