I have always believed that the true measure of a self-catering holiday is not the view from the bedroom window, but what you manage to produce in the kitchen after a long journey. Our trip to Asgardstrand in Vestfold put this theory to the test rather sooner than I had hoped.

The drive from Sandefjord Airport had been pleasant enough, winding through pine forests and past glimpses of the Oslofjord that made me want to stop every five minutes for photographs. My partner, ever practical, insisted we press on to the supermarket in Asgardstrand itself. This was where the trouble began. In my enthusiasm to secure local ingredients, I loaded our trolley with what I believed to be a fine selection of Norwegian produce. It was only at the self-catering cottage, unpacking onto the wooden kitchen counters with that satisfying holiday ritual, that I discovered my "premium cooking oil" was in fact a bottle of concentrated fish liver oil intended for health supplements. The smell when I opened it could have cleared the fjord of shipping. My partner's face remains one of my most treasured holiday memories.

The cottage kitchen, I should say, was properly equipped in that modest Scandinavian way. Good knives, sensible pans, and a hob that heated with the quiet efficiency one expects. We had planned to cook properly that first evening, to honour the local ingredients with our best efforts. Instead, we made do with bread, cheese, and the one successful purchase from my shopping: a tub of fresh shrimps from the harbour, which needed nothing more than a quick rinse and a squeeze of lemon. We ate them on the small terrace as the light faded over the water, and I decided that sometimes culinary disaster leads to something better than planned.

The following morning, properly chastened, I walked down to the harbour before breakfast. Asgardstrand's small fishing boats were unloading their catch, and I found a man selling fresh cod and mackerel from a plastic table near the water. He spoke enough English to understand my request for "something simple to cook," and filleted two pieces of cod with movements so practised they were almost meditative to watch. I carried them back through streets of white wooden houses, feeling unreasonably pleased with myself.

Breakfast that day became a proper event. The cottage had a small coffee press, and I made strong coffee while my partner fried eggs with slices of a dense, dark bread we had found at the local Meny supermarket. The cod waited in the refrigerator, but we were learning to pace ourselves. Self-catering, we discovered, is as much about the rhythm of meals as the cooking itself.

The town's limited but genuine offerings shaped our days. There was no farmers' market in the traditional sense, but the small shops along the harbour road stocked local cheeses and cured meats that made excellent lunches. I became particularly attached to a brown cheese called brunost, which my partner insisted tasted like caramelised regret but which I spread thickly on everything. We bought jars of cloudberry jam and argued about whether it suited porridge or pancakes better. The porridge won, made on a rainy morning when the fjord had disappeared into grey mist and the kitchen became the centre of the world.

Our most ambitious cooking attempt came on the third day. Inspired by the shrimps and fish, I decided to attempt a proper fish soup. The recipe I found on my phone was Danish rather than Norwegian, but I improvised with local stock cubes and a splash of cream from the dairy section. The result was edible, which I consider a triumph given my track record. My partner was kind enough to have seconds, though I suspect this was partly because the cottage's heating had been set to a temperature that made warm food psychologically necessary.

What I came to appreciate was how the limitations of a small town focused our attention. Without endless restaurant options, without the distraction of a major city's food scene, we paid proper attention to what we had. The morning walk to buy fresh bread from the bakery near the church. The careful planning of meals around what was available. The slow pleasure of cooking together in a kitchen where every utensil had to be washed by hand.

On our final evening, we repeated the shrimp ritual, but this time with proper oil and a bottle of white wine from the state monopoly shop. I had learned to read Norwegian labels with something approaching competence. The sun stayed late in the sky, as it does in Vestfold in summer, and we ate slowly, talking about nothing in particular. The fish soup disaster, the fish oil catastrophe, the brown cheese debates: they had become part of the story we would tell.

Self-catering, I realised, is not really about demonstrating cooking prowess. It is about the small negotiations of a shared life, played out in an unfamiliar kitchen with unfamiliar ingredients. Asgardstrand gave us that in abundance, along with fresh fish, excellent shrimp, and a new appreciation for reading labels carefully. We left with fuller stomachs and slightly better Norwegian vocabulary, already planning what we might cook on our return.