Today I’m at the mercy of the food and beverage marketers of the world. My level of fullness is completely dependent on the plans for today’s grocery store merchants and food publicists to offer tasty and nutritious snacks. Adam and I are heading down to meet David Becker at the downtown Farmer’s Market to begin our quest for free samples.

The mission: Live off of free samples for a full day and live blog the experience on both Tasty Touring and The Forty Days.

Please feel free to follow along here or through my Twitter account, @tastytouring. If you are out and about and locate some delicious sampling goodness, please let us know on Twitter, or by leaving a comment below.

10:15 a.m. I am starving. My usual breakfast time is 7:30 a.m. and I’ve been very active this morning, starting the day by washing Lucy in the backyard, vigorously grooming and drying her, and taking her on a long walk. After that, we started the dishwasher and a load of laundry, tidied up the common living areas, and packed up for the day. I need free samples of coffee and breakfast pastries. Hopefully both will be available at the Farmer’s Market. Stay tuned.

10:35 a.m. In the car with a cooler filled with ice packs, empty Tupperware, and zip loc bags. I plan to fill these with free samples when I’m full so I can be prepared for lulls in the samples. Adam and I are cranky but cheered up listening to Suzie Essman, from Curb Your Enthusiasm on NPR. She’s on “Wait, wait. Don’t tell me.”

11:31 a.m.Lots of samples to be had at the downtown farmers market including jams, hummus, basil pesto, curries, cheeses, iced tea, and coffee. I’m still super hungry though.

We ran into old and new friends like My closet, my life blogger Joyce, the Seay family, and food book club friend Rachel. I was very happy Texas Coffee Traders offers coffee samples or I’d be hurting right now.

12:45 p.m. Enjoying the live music and shaded tent at the Sunset Valley Farmers Market. My tummy is comfortably filled with fresh shelled pecans, award-winning salsa, a variety of crackers, granola, kombucha tea, hard and spreadable cheeses, hot tea, blueberry lemonade, charcuterie, some gluten free sugar free dessert called chocolate kula, lemon blueberry goat cheese, kale krisps and agua fresca from Daily Juice, and bison jerky.

The best part was chatting with all of the proprieters. More on that, later. We saw friends Jenna and Joe of Co-op Coffee and Paul of Daily Juice.

2:15 p.m. David picked up his friend from Brooklyn, Rick, from the airport and they picked me and Adam up from Sunset Valley and we drove to Brodie Lane to sample at Sprouts and World Market. Sprouts enticed us with free chips in the lobby followed by a bunch of different breads. After that, we didn’t see any other samples. WTF?

They have about four rows of bulk bins with a sign saying ask employees to sample. We wandered over and asked a bunch of them if they could help us. They waved us off, saying: “go on ahead and help yourself.” So we did! We tried licorice, gummy worms, chocolate covered almonds, peanut butter cups, and more. Adam served some random kid try chocolate covered Goji berries.

Adam serves someone else's kid chocolate-covered goji berries

We walked over to the World Market a couple doors down and headed to the back of the store where the samples are hidden. There wasn’t much in the way of food — some almond and chocolate biscotti, and of course their Hawaiian Kettle Style Potato Chips. We scored with our first alcohol samples of the day — a Barbarossa red wine and a St. Arnold beer. Frank Mancuso, the St. Arnold sample guy said he’s heard wine makers say that it takes a lot of beers to make one good bottle of wine.

At about 1:30 p.m., we arrived at Costco, the temple of the sample. The Seay’s lent us their Costco card earlier in the day and we flashed it to the door guy who waved us in. Phew.

All of the people handing out samples at Costco work for a company called Club Demonstration Services. We noshed on Ritz with Boursin cheese and a huge piece of smoked salmon:

We then had delicious pumpkin bread from Harvest Bread Company, mini quiche, and then saw this kooky blender salesman:

This was the start of a sample motherload including bourbon chicken, and a huge piece of frozen lasagna served by this guy wearing a beardnet. He informed me that his beard is red while the hair on his head is brown. OK…yuck.

I was dying for some fruit and this guy provided some yummy frozen grapefruit in a cup:

On our way out there were two energy bar sample stations and some weird liquid, dreamsicle/gross-tasting supplement. Adam and I take a romantic sip:

Afternoon Sample Slideshow:

12:02 a.m. Enjoyed final sample of the day 20 minutes ago — a fried strawberry from ZubickHouse, a new food trailer next to Longbranch on E. 11 St. I’m headed back there now that free sample day is over for a Scaloppini sandwich — $6 that I will gladly pay.