I have never been so relieved to see a frozen lake in all my life. After seven hours of driving from Oslo, three of which were spent crawling behind a tractor on roads that felt more like suggestions than tarmac, my partner and I finally spotted the sign for Sjusjoen. The relief lasted approximately forty seconds, which is how long it took me to realise I had left the entire cool bag of groceries on the kitchen counter back in our flat.

The cottage itself was everything the photos had promised and more. Red timber walls, a proper wood-burning stove, and a kitchen that actually made me want to cook rather than just microwave ready meals. There was even a small herb planter on the windowsill, though everything in it had clearly given up around October and was now just decorative twigs. I stood there in my socks, starving, surveying the situation with the kind of optimism that only comes from complete denial.

Our nearest shop was a small Kiwi supermarket about fifteen minutes away, which we discovered closed at four on Saturdays. It was currently half past. This set the tone for the entire week, really. We ended up at the petrol station shop instead, which had an impressive selection of hot dogs rotating under a heat lamp and not much else. I bought three packs of leverpostei because the label looked friendly and I panicked. My partner bought something called "brunost" that looked like a block of caramel but apparently was not.

That first evening we ate leverpostei on crispbread by candlelight, which sounds romantic until you realise leverpostei is essentially liver pate and we had no butter. The wood stove crackled away while we sat there chewing in thoughtful silence, occasionally catching each other's eye with expressions that said "we are adults who have made choices."

The following morning I was determined to redeem myself. The cottage had a proper coffee maker and I managed not to ruin that, which felt like progress. We drove to Lillehammer's Saturday market, about twenty minutes away, where I bought cloudberries from a woman who spoke no English and communicated entirely through expressive hand gestures. I also bought a reindeer sausage that I later cooked for far too long because I was paranoid about food poisoning in a foreign country. It had the texture of a wallet but tasted genuinely wonderful, which I think is the most Norwegian thing I have ever experienced.

Back at the cottage, I attempted proper cooking with the enthusiasm of someone who had watched approximately two cooking programmes in their entire life. The kitchen was genuinely well-equipped, which almost made things worse because I had no excuses. I made a fish soup using stock from a powder, some frozen prawns from the Kiwi, and those cloudberries, which I now understand are for desserts and not savoury dishes. My partner ate it without complaint, which I have chosen to interpret as love rather than politeness.

By day three I had developed an odd relationship with the local petrol station shop. The woman behind the counter started recognising us, which felt like a small victory until I considered what we were being recognised for. We bought their entire supply of knekkebrod at one point, plus something called "spekemat" that I assembled into a respectable-looking platter for our evening meal. I photographed it from three angles before we ate it, which my partner found ridiculous until I pointed out that this was literally the first attractive meal I had produced all week.

The cottage's dining table sat six, so our little two-person feasts looked slightly tragic spread across it. We kept moving our plates closer together to compensate. On our final evening I managed a respectable reindeer stew, or at least something that tasted like what I imagined reindeer stew should be, served with boiled potatoes and a quiet sense of achievement. We ate it slowly, watching the last light fade over the frozen lake, and I thought about how often I let perfect be the enemy of good, especially when it comes to feeding myself and people I care about.

I still think about that kitchen sometimes. The failed herb planter. The way the stove warmed the whole room. The morning I finally made decent coffee without measuring anything, just going by feel. We left the remaining leverpostei in the fridge for the next guests, which I like to imagine as a sort of culinary baton pass, a tradition of holidaymakers feeding holidaymakers across the seasons. They probably threw it out immediately. But maybe, just maybe, they sat down with crispbread and candlelight and found something in the simplicity of it that surprised them.