I have never been so relieved to see a red wooden house in my life, and that includes the time I got lost in a Danish furniture shop for forty minutes. The drive from Gothenburg to our little place near Hok had been straightforward enough, or so I thought until I confidently turned onto what I believed was a scenic shortcut and found myself on a gravel track that seemed to lead exclusively to a very disappointed-looking herd of cows. My partner sat in silence for a full minute before asking, in that particular tone, whether I had perhaps confused "sat nav" with "suggestion box."

We arrived at the cottage with the sort of hunger that makes reasonable people unreasonable. The kitchen, I must say, was immediately promising, all clean lines and that satisfying Scandinavian practicality where everything has a place and, remarkably, everything is actually in it. I had grand plans for our first evening, visions of me effortlessly producing some local masterpiece while a glass of wine sat nearby looking atmospheric.

What I actually produced was a pan of potatoes that managed to be both undercooked and somehow burnt at the edges, a feat of culinary physics I cannot explain. The local ICA supermarket in Skillingaryd had provided excellent ingredients, crisp vegetables, proper butter, those marvellous Swedish potatoes that taste of something, and I had let them down terribly. My partner, chewing with the determined optimism of someone who loves me, suggested that perhaps the hob ran hot. It does not run hot. I ran hot, flustered, refusing to read instructions written in a language I do not speak.

The morning brought redemption of sorts, or at least coffee strong enough to face it. We drove to a farm shop not far from the cottage, the sort of place where the eggs still have mud on them and the woman behind the counter knows the name of the cow. I bought cheese that tasted of the actual field the cows had stood in, and crispbread that made me understand why Swedes are so serious about it. There is a particular satisfaction in buying food from someone who made it, or at least knows who did, that supermarket shopping never quite matches however convenient the latter might be.

Back at the cottage, I attempted breakfast with more humility and better results. Fried eggs, that cheese torn in rough chunks, tomatoes that actually tasted of summer, and coffee taken outside on the little terrace where the morning sun hit just right. I found myself eating more slowly than I do at home, not through any conscious effort but because the food seemed to demand it, each bite having enough to say that rushing felt rude.

Lunch became our main event most days. We would assemble something from whatever the farm shop or the ICA had offered, eat it at the wooden table with the windows open to the garden, and call it perfect. Simple smoked fish with dense bread and butter. Thinly sliced cucumber with dill and a sharp dressing. Leftover potatoes fried until proper and golden, which I managed without incident after my earlier disaster, though I watched them like a hawk watches a vole.

One evening, determined to do justice to the kitchen, I attempted a proper Swedish meatball situation. The mince from the local butcher was excellent, I will say that much. My technique with the shaping was less excellent, producing spheres of wildly varying geometry that my partner described, not inaccurately, as "expressive." The cream sauce split slightly, because I got ambitious with the heat, but we ate them anyway with lingonberry jam and more of those potatoes, and they tasted of effort and place and the particular pleasure of cooking somewhere that feels briefly like yours.

The local bakery, a morning drive to a nearby village, became a ritual. Cardamom buns that filled the car with their warm perfume before we even broke the paper bag. Proper rye bread with a dense, honest crumb. I am not normally a breakfast person, rushing coffee and perhaps a sad bit of toast, but something about the pace of this place converted me. Each morning I woke actually hungry, anticipating that bun, that strong coffee in the little pot provided, the quiet before we decided what the day might hold.

I did not become a brilliant cook that week. What I became was someone who paid attention to eating, who noticed that a tomato in August in Smaland tastes different from one in February in Manchester, who understood that the best meals were not the ones I fussed over but the ones built from what was good nearby and eaten without ceremony. On our last evening, I made a simple stew of root vegetables and the last of the good meat, let it simmer while we packed, and we ate it from bowls on our knees because we had already started clearing the table. It was probably the best thing I cooked all week, and I think that was because I had finally stopped trying to prove something and simply fed us.

We left with a jar of cloudberry jam in the boot and a resolution to find better farm shops at home, though I suspect they will not be quite the same. Some things belong to where you find them, and the particular pleasure of cooking badly but earnestly in a red wooden kitchen in Smaland, then slowly getting slightly less bad at it, is one of them.