If you are what you eat, then would that make me really good? Everything I eat is really good.

A craving for potato pancakes snuck up on me earlier in the week, so we finally made some last night. What goes with potato pancakes? We ended up just getting pork, sauteing them in bite-sized pieces.

All in all, a pretty cheap meal that was made more expensive by the lack of local bulk potatoes. We ended up having to buy the pre-packaged kind.

You see, in China, they have about three different kinds of the same item, each with a different price point. Not being well-versed in Chinese, I have no idea what the differences between each kind, except that one (the cheapest) is “regular,” the more expensive (usually pre-packaged in a small tray and plastic wrap) kind is organic and the most expensive is … more organic? Needless to say, the pre-packaged produce usually looks a little nicer, but are sometimes five times the price of the regular, pick-what-you-want kind. It usually isn’t worth it. For example, I have gotten a bag of regular potatoes for less than 1 kuai (15 cents); the special potatoes I got for these pancakes — four of them — cost about 12 kuai ($1.76). In other words, this dinner could have been much cheaper.

Main ingredients: pork, potatoes.

Special flavorings: sour cream accompaniment.

Total cost: 25 RMB ($3.68) for two servings of pork and 12 potato pancakes.