I should have known the holiday was going to be eventful when I tried to fill up our hire car with petrol and accidentally grabbed the diesel nozzle. The chap at the station in Lillestrom looked at me with the kind of pity usually reserved for people who try to ski in July. Still, we made it to Sjusjoen eventually, rumbling up through the pine forests of Hedmark with the boot stuffed full of shopping bags from a frantic stop at a Meny supermarket. I had grand plans, you see. Visions of myself as some sort of Nordic domestic god, preparing hearty mountain meals while snow fell gently outside our cabin.

The cabin itself was everything the pictures promised. Red wood, white trim, that satisfying crunch of proper snow under your boots. I stood in the kitchen with my bags of reindeer meat, cloudberries, and what I believed to be a particularly handsome wedge of brunost, feeling rather pleased with myself. The kitchen had a proper cooker, decent knives, and a view of the frozen lake that made me want to weep slightly.

My first attempt at dinner was reindeer stew. I had found a recipe on my phone, written in Norwegian, which I translated with the confidence of a man who once got sixty percent in a French GCSE. I browned the meat beautifully, I thought, added stock, threw in some root vegetables I had found at a small farmers' market in Ringsaker that morning. The market had been wonderful, actually. A chap selling smoked fish from the back of a van, an elderly woman with jars of preserved cloudberries who looked at my attempts at Norwegian with visible pain. I bought far too much, as one does, including something I thought was lingonberry jam but which turned out to be pickled beetroot. That discovery came later.

The stew simmered for hours. The cabin filled with what I took to be an authentic, rustic aroma. My partner appeared from the bedroom, sniffed cautiously, and asked if something was burning. I assured her this was simply the robust character of traditional Norwegian cooking. It was not. I had forgotten to turn down the heat after the initial browning. What emerged from that pot was less a stew and more a science experiment in caramelisation. The reindeer had achieved a texture I can only describe as educational. We ate it anyway, because we were hungry and because there is a particular kind of stubborn pride that comes with ruining expensive meat in a foreign country.

Breakfast the next morning was safer. Brunost on bread, which I sliced too thickly at first. The cheese has a sweetness that caught me off guard, a sort of caramelised depth that made me understand why Norwegians defend it so fiercely. I ate it with my fingers standing at the kitchen window, watching a cross-country skier glide past with the effortless grace of someone who had never attempted to poison themselves with poorly translated recipes.

The local Spar became my salvation. I visited daily, developing a rapport with the woman at the till who eventually stopped wincing at my pronunciation. I bought ready-made fish cakes, which I heated with reasonable competence. I bought vacuum-packed lutefisk, stared at it for a full five minutes, then quietly returned it to the shelf. Some culinary boundaries exist for good reason.

My finest moment came on our fourth day. I found fresh trout at a small shop near the ski trails, caught locally that morning. I cooked it simply, with butter and dill from a pot on the kitchen windowsill, served with boiled potatoes that I managed not to overcook. We ate by candlelight because the electricity had briefly failed, which felt less like a problem and more like atmospheric confirmation of my finally achieved competence.

I left Sjusjoen with a fuller waistline and a humbler understanding of my own limitations. The cabin's kitchen had witnessed my failures and my single modest triumph. I packed the remaining brunost in my suitcase, wrapped carefully in socks, and carried it home like a trophy. Some holidays teach you about mountains or culture or yourself. This one taught me that I should probably stick to recipes written in languages I actually understand, and that even badly cooked reindeer tastes better when eaten in a red wooden cabin while the snow falls soft and silent outside.