I have never been so grateful for a cup of instant coffee in my entire life. After fourteen hours of travel that included a delayed flight to Oslo, a train to Lillehammer, and what I can only describe as an enthusiastic but misguided attempt to drive a hire car up a snowy mountain road in the dark, I finally arrived at the cabin in Nordseter. The mishap? I had somehow packed my entire spice collection, three novels, and a travel pillow shaped like a sheep, but managed to leave my actual bag of groceries on the kitchen counter back in Manchester. There it sat, probably judging me, while I stood in this wooden cabin with nothing but a tin of emergency sardines and my own poor life choices.

The cabin itself was immediately charming in that very Norwegian way, all pine walls and practical furniture and a kitchen that looked like it meant business. I ran my hand along the counter and made solemn promises to it. We would cook together, this kitchen and I. Proper meals. Local ingredients. I would become the sort of person who casually whips up reindeer stew after a day on skis. First, though, I needed actual food.

Morning brought proper daylight and the slow realisation that I had absolutely no idea where to buy anything. The cabin's welcome folder mentioned a Matkroken in Lillehammer, so I drove down with the kind of desperate hunger that makes you irrational in supermarkets. This Matkroken became my salvation. I wandered the aisles like a man discovering civilisation for the first time, filling my basket with brunost that brown cheese that looks like caramel and tastes like something your Norwegian grandmother would insist you try, thick slices of spekeskinke cured ham, and a tub of leverpostei that I immediately regretted but refused to put back out of sheer stubbornness.

Back at the cabin, I attempted my first proper meal. The kitchen had good knives, solid pans, and a hob that behaved itself. I fried the spekeskinke until it went crisp, scrambled some local eggs that were almost embarrassingly yellow, and made a hash of trying to slice the brunost thinly enough. It kept crumbling. I kept eating the crumbles. By the time I actually assembled anything resembling breakfast, I had consumed roughly a third of the cheese through sheer attrition. The leverpostei sat in the fridge like a threat.

The following days developed a rhythm of eating that I can only describe as gloriously self-indulgent. I discovered the Meny in Lillehammer, larger and more dangerous, where I bought proper cod loins and a bag of potatoes and some dill that I intended to use sparingly but ended up throwing at everything like confetti. One evening I attempted fiskeboller in white sauce using a recipe I found on my phone with one bar of signal. The sauce split. The fiskeboller were suspiciously uniform in a way that suggested factory rather than fjord. I ate the entire pot standing at the counter in my thermal socks, feeling simultaneously defeated and triumphant.

There was a small bakery near the ski trails at Sjusjoen where I bought skolebrod, those custard-filled buns with coconut on top, and ate them in the car with snow melting on the windscreen. I told myself this was research. I was immersing myself in local culture. The truth was simpler. I was cold, they were warm, and the combination of cardamom and custard was doing something restorative to my soul.

My most ambitious cooking attempt came on my fourth day. I had acquired lamb ribs from a butcher in Lillehammer, proper pinnekjott that required soaking and steaming and general faff that I absolutely did not have the patience for. The cabin's kitchen absorbed my chaos. I steamed the ribs over birch sticks as tradition apparently demands, though I suspect I used too many sticks and not enough water. The result was chewy and salty and absolutely perfect after a morning of falling over on cross-country skis. I ate with my fingers at the kitchen table, looking out at snow and pine trees and feeling genuinely pleased with myself in a way that home cooking rarely achieves.

The brunost finally met its end melted into a creamy sauce for pasta, which I am certain is not traditional but which tasted like comfort itself. The leverpostei remained in the fridge, slowly becoming a metaphor for my own limitations. Some things, I decided, require a Norwegian childhood to truly appreciate.

On my final morning I made one last trip to Matkroken, buying a wedge of geitost to take home and a packet of kaviar in a tube that I intended as a joke gift but which I suspect will be genuinely appreciated by at least one friend. The checkout woman recognised me by then, or perhaps she simply recognised the particular dazed happiness of someone who has been eating very well in a very quiet place.

I closed up the cabin with reluctance, leaving the kitchen cleaner than I found it as a kind of apology and thank you combined. The drive down the mountain felt different in daylight, less dramatic, more forgiving. I had arrived in chaos and hunger, and I was leaving with a slightly tighter waistband and a genuine affection for brown cheese. Some holidays change your perspective. This one mostly changed my eating habits, and honestly, that feels like enough.