Getting to Tiveden Grassjoen was meant to be the easy bit. I had my phone, my hire car, and a very confident attitude about Swedish road signs. Two hours out of Orebro, I found myself down a gravel track staring at what I can only describe as a very angry-looking moose. Not a road sign. An actual moose. It looked at me with the kind of disdain I normally reserve for my own cooking, and I realised I had missed the turning by roughly four miles. Backing up a gravel track in a Fiat Punto is not, I discovered, an Olympic sport for good reason.

When I finally found the proper turning, the cottage revealed itself through the trees like something from a postcard I would later buy and pretend was exaggerated. Red wooden walls, a little jetty poking into the lake, and a silence so complete I could hear my own stomach rumbling from missed lunch. The key was in a lockbox, which I fumbled with for an embarrassing length of time while a neighbour watched from their garden with the patient amusement of someone who has seen this many times before.

The kitchen was the first thing I properly investigated, because my relationship with self-catering is complicated. I am someone who owns three recipe books and has successfully ruined dishes from all of them. The kitchen at Tiveden Grassjoen was unexpectedly well-equipped, which I took as a personal challenge. There was a proper gas hob, a fridge that actually worked, and enough pots and pans to suggest the owners had met people like me before. I unpacked my shopping from Orebro with the optimism of the truly unskilled: eggs, local potatoes, some vacuum-packed gravad lax I had bought because it felt appropriately Swedish, and a jar of pickled herring that I immediately regretted.

That first evening, I attempted what I called "a simple Swedish-inspired supper." The potatoes were straightforward enough, though I managed to undercook them slightly through a combination of impatience and poor knife skills. The gravad lax I served with a mustard sauce that I made too thin, so it pooled sadly on the plate like a yellow puddle. I ate on the little wooden deck overlooking the lake, watching the light fade and pretending my food was meant to look rustic rather than merely rough. A pair of ducks paddled past, eyeing my plate with what I chose to interpret as envy rather than concern.

Morning brought the proper revelation. I had read about the local farmers' market in Karlsborg, a short drive away, and arrived with empty bags and grand intentions. The market was smaller than I expected and utterly charming. An elderly woman sold cloudberries from a folding table, their orange colour almost aggressive in the morning light. I bought some out of politeness and curiosity, then spent the drive back wondering what exactly one does with cloudberries. Another stall had fresh new potatoes, still dusty with soil, and smoked fish that smelled so good I ate a piece standing there like a tourist, which of course I was.

Back at the cottage, I made what I can only call my first successful meal of the trip. The new potatoes, boiled properly this time with a generous amount of dill I had also bought at the market. The smoked fish, flaked onto rye bread with butter. The cloudberries I spooned over yoghurt for pudding, their tart sweetness making me understand why people bother with foraging. I ate slowly, properly, watching the lake and feeling briefly competent in a way that my normal life in a city flat rarely allows.

The rest of the week became a gentle rhythm of small culinary experiments and modest successes. I made pancakes one morning, Swedish style and thinner than my usual thick English efforts, served with the last of the cloudberries and some local honey I found at a petrol station of all places. I attempted a fish soup with pike perch from a nearby shop, following a recipe I found in a drawer and adapting it based on what I had actually remembered to buy. It was not authentic, not really, but it was warm and filling and entirely my own slightly wrong version of something proper.

What struck me most was how the cooking became part of the place rather than separate from it. In the city, food is something I acquire and consume quickly, often while doing something else. At Tiveden Grassjoen, the preparing of it, the eating of it, the washing up afterwards while looking out at the water, all merged into the same experience. Even my failures, and there were several including a batch of cinnamon buns that rose unevenly and looked like small brown mountains, felt acceptable in that setting. The moose would probably not have approved, but the moose was not invited.

On my final evening, I made a simple meal of leftovers and ate it with a glass of surprisingly decent boxed wine. The sun stayed up late, as it does, and I sat on the deck long after finishing, feeling full and peaceful and slightly surprised by myself. I had come expecting scenery and solitude, which I found. But I had also found something unexpected in the small daily act of feeding myself properly, with ingredients I had chosen and prepared with my own slightly clumsy hands. It was not gourmet. It was not even consistently good. But it was honest, and it was mine, and I think that is what I will remember most when I think back to that little red cottage by the lake.