My love affair with dates actually only started when I ordered as part of a tapas brunch one of the plates being “bacon-wrapped dates” which was wonderful when I tried it. This event was being held at a work function far away, one of our spring get-togethers for a database system I manage for Western. After we all returned from the event that exposure to dates stayed with me and I went looking for them locally. I found that Sams Club, of all places was selling the “Bard Valley” brand of Medjool Dates. I started buying the bins of them and enjoying the dates as snacks during my breaks at work. When I got them from Sams, they were listed as a “Seasonal Buy” which in my mind meant that Sams wasn’t going to permanently carry them, that they could sell out and not be restocked and I’d be left high-and-dry without any way to procure my favorite treat. I’ve written about this before, especially the prices for these treats in another older blog post, Sticker Shock. I knew that Sams would eventually stop carrying them and I’d have to find another vendor so I went online and found Nuts.com. They sell sample size bags, and then pound and multiple-pound bags of everything they have for sale and their prices are just as competitive as anywhere else except for Sams. While Nuts.com can’t compete for price with Sams, they can over quality. There is something about the dates from Nuts.com that make them far better than the ones from Bard Valley. They seem fresher, fuller somehow, better.
When I put these Medjool dates on my Amazon wishlist one of my beloved family members sent me a gift box of them from Nuts.com. Of course, Nuts.com has more than just dates – I can also highly recommend their Turkish Figs. The figs and dates are a great combination together. The dates have pits, so you must be careful eating them, you just can’t chomp away on a unpitted date unless you hate your teeth, but the figs are almost all edible, except sometimes for the stem which is a little too hard to chew sometimes. The prices are quite excellent at Nuts.com, but where everything gets in trouble with them is shipping and there is no way around it. I think if a bunch of people ganged up in one big order from Nuts.com you’d be able to defray the cost of shipping that way, otherwise it’s only meant for a treat when you can afford the cost of the produce plus the extra shipping charges.
If you have a sweet tooth and like Fig Newtons like I do, you can save yourself a lot of needless calories and enjoy a healthy wholesome snack by going to Nuts.com. Your local Sams, or even a health-food-store might carry Dates, but the prices will blow your head off.