I have never been so happy to see a packet of meatballs in all my life.

The drive down from Gothenburg had been straightforward enough, if you consider three hours of Swedish motorways and my partner's questionable playlist straightforward. We were headed for a little place called Skaelderviken, just outside Angelholm in Skane, where we had booked a proper self-catering cottage for the week. The plan was simple: switch off, cook properly, eat well. No restaurants, no fuss, just us and the local produce and whatever culinary disasters we could conjure up in an unfamiliar kitchen.

The mishap came roughly two miles from the property. I had been in charge of the shopping. In my defence, I had made a list. In my partner's defence, I had left it on the kitchen table in London. So there we were, standing in a Hemkop in Angelholm, me frantically googling "Swedish pantry essentials" while she loaded the trolley with what she called "intuitive purchases." This turned out to be three types of pickled herring, a jar of something called "filmjolk" that we later established was basically runny yoghurt, and a family pack of crispbread the size of a skateboard. No pasta. No rice. No actual vegetables beyond a single, rather melancholy celeriac. I added the meatballs in a panic, and a block of Vasterbotten cheese that the woman at the deli counter recommended with the kind of enthusiasm usually reserved for recommending a good solicitor.

The cottage itself was perfect in that understated Scandinavian way. Clean lines, lots of light, a kitchen that looked considerably more competent than its new occupants. We dumped the bags and I immediately set about investigating the local food situation. The Novasol listing had mentioned fishing and coastal walks, so I had visions of hauling in our own supper like some sort of Bear Grylls with a Thermos. The reality was a brisk walk down to the shore, where I managed to get my wellies stuck in mud and spotted precisely zero fish, unless you count the ones already dead and packaged in the Angelholm fish shop we'd passed earlier.

That first evening we kept things simple. Meatballs, obviously, with a cream sauce I attempted from memory and some lingonberry jam from a jar. The filmjolk remained unopened, staring at me with what I can only describe as dairy-based judgement. We ate on the little terrace as the light faded, and I felt that particular satisfaction of having cooked something adequate in a new place, even if the journey to get there had involved mild marital tension and a celeriac that would haunt us for days.

The following morning I walked into Angelholm proper, determined to do better. The market was on, small but serious, with stalls of local potatoes, early strawberries, and bundles of dill that smelled like summer itself. I bought eggs from a woman who kept her chickens' names on a laminated sheet, and bread from a baker who communicated entirely through enthusiastic gestures and the word "gott." Good. Everything was gott. I liked this approach to food criticism.

Back at the cottage, I attempted proper Swedish pancakes for lunch. The first one stuck to the pan in a way that suggested either operator error or a fundamental design flaw in Swedish cookware. The second was acceptable. The third was genuinely good, or perhaps I was simply hungry enough to lower my standards. We ate them with the strawberries and a drizzle of honey, and I felt briefly like a competent human being.

The celeriac, meanwhile, sat in the fridge like a beige grenade of obligation. I eventually roasted it with butter and thyme, which was fine, though my partner noted it tasted "earthy" in a tone that suggested this was not entirely a compliment. The pickled herring disappeared at a rate of approximately one piece per day, each consumption feeling more like a dare than a meal.

By midweek I had found my rhythm. The local ICA became familiar territory. I learned to ask for "lokal" produce in my mangled phrasebook Swedish, and was rewarded with tomatoes that actually tasted of something. I made a fish soup with proper stock, dill, and potatoes that dissolved slightly to thicken it, the way I remembered from a holiday years ago. My partner made a salad with the last of the market strawberries, sliced thin with cucumber and a sharp dressing that shouldn't have worked but absolutely did.

The filmjolk finally met its end in a failed attempt at a sauce. Some things, I have learned, are not meant to be cooked.

What struck me most was how the cooking shaped the whole week. Without the structure of restaurant bookings, we ate when hungry, shopped when inspired, failed and tried again in a kitchen that began to feel like ours. The crispbread outlasted our stay by some margin, and I suspect it is still in that cottage now, waiting for the next optimistic holiday cook.

On our final morning I made those pancakes again, and all three came out perfectly. We ate them slowly, watching the light on the water, already talking about what we would do differently next time. More dill, for a start. Less celeriac. And absolutely, without question, a laminated shopping list pinned to my actual person.