Dates with assorted nuts

    I love my coconut-cocoa butter cookies, I do. But I still felt that they needed something more. I had previously thought that that something was raisins, the black-colored ones made from red grapes. But I was never happy with the result when I put them in; too grapy I guess.
    So I thought I'd try golden raisins. These (I think I remember) are the secret ingredient in the Archway oatmeal cookies that I used to live on during a previous dietary regime (the omnivorous one). I think they're sweeter than the dark ones, but I checked the box and the sugar content is the same.
    But here's another thing that was on the box: they use preservatives. This is something I've raved about before: food items that are especially prepared such that they shouldn't need preservatives, whether it's by drying or freezing or canning but somehow have them anyway. The dark raisins didn't have preservatives. I can only guess that the golden raisins sell slower so it's thought to be necessary to add preservatives to keep them shelf-stable. But perhaps I'm romancing; I should have thought to compare the expiration dates.
    Regardless, I decided that I would be happier without golden raisins, especially since you can only buy them in a largish box. Publix also had dried dates. The chopped ones had added dextrose; the pitted ones (presumably the chopped ones are also pitted, but I'm just reporting how they were labeled) didn't. As the sugar content was the same again, it must have been very little dextrose, but I went with the pitted anyway. I'm not sure if they improve the cookies or not, but I'm quite sure they don't make them worse. As it happens, I ran out of pecans and had to fill out the cup with walnuts. This allows me to call the cookies Dates with Assorted Nuts, which is the kind of stuff I live for.