One of my favourite magazines was Chocolatier. This recipe comes from Volume 1, No. 2 (1984!). I do not recall the year it stopped publishing. It seemed to happen suddenly and without any notice.

Many of the recipes in my "repertoire" are from that magazine - and in time I will replicate them all here. Oddly there is still a website showing a classic cover of the zine, claiming that it has now morphed into Dessert Professionals - seems like an odd, clunky website - hmmm...

Chocolatier says the cookie is/was famous from the American Cafe, in the Washington D.C. area. I can't quite tell if that Cafe still exists.

This was a classic, oft-repeated recipe in the KB kitchen before it became "empty-nest". Now these tasty cookies occasionally reach fans in a parcel.

Preheat oven to 325 F. Remove butter and eggs from refrigerator to bring to room temperature. Line cookie sheets with parchment. This recipe makes 2.5 to 3 dozen cookies (that measure about 2.5" across) so good idea to prep two additional parchment sheets. Toast walnuts and cool before chopping. Measure / prepare all ingredients. Do review my Tips (below) before baking these.

Add the flour mixture to the chocolate / butter mixture and beat slowly for 2 minutes.

Fold in the walnuts and coconut and stir just to combine. Drop the dough in 2 tablespoon size chunks onto an ungreased cookie sheet bake for 9 minutes until cooked through.

Notes and Tips...

• Walnuts - I have also made these with pecans, though I think the walnuts are a bit better. Taste them to be sure they are fresh and not rancid. Nuts in baking always taste better if the nuts are lightly toasted. Most of the time I prefer to do this in the oven - 8-12 minutes in a 350 F oven. Review these brief tips from @thekitchn. Cool the nuts and do a small (but not fine) chop by hand.
• Coconuts - review my tips on coconut. For this recipe I like to use "flaked" coconut - it must be fresh (moist), not leftover from a previous bake and consequently a bit dry. I don't think I have ever made this with the full 3.5 cups - I think perhaps because i often did not have that much on hand. I have made it with anywhere between 1 and 3 cups.
• Cocoa - as I have previously  outlined, there are two kinds of cocoa. Maybe 31 year ago recipes were not so much distinguishing between natural unsweetened and Dutch-processed. I use Dutch-processed when making this.
• Chocolate chips - the better the chocolate chips, the better the cookies. I like Ghirardelli, or my local chocolate shop - Castelyn - also sells them.
• Beating stage - the original recipe combines all the 'step one' ingredients at once and states "Beat at high-speed for 3 minutes until the chips are broken up and the mixture is the really blended." I cannot imagine any mixer that would "break down" the chocolate chips - and why is that even desirable? Thus, the instructions I outlined above - add the chocolate chips after the 3 minute beating step.
• Drop cookies - I use a scoop to drop the cookies on the sheet, leaving room between scoops since they will spread to almost 3 inches.
• Ungreased cookie sheet - I use parchment on ATK recommended cookie sheets
• Bake time - in my beat-up magazine I have many stickie notes trying to sort out the best bake time. Once and for all I am going to declare that the recommended 9 minutes in a 325 F oven absolutely does not bake these cookies well enough. I do know that cookies continue to bake a bit after being pulled from an oven, and their consistency changes as they cool, but 9 minutes, cooled to room temp and it still feels like you are eating raw cookie dough. If that's how you like cookies - go for it. I also have many notes re how the dough behaves if it has first been chilled. I pondered the idea of pumping up the heat to 375 which is used for many classic cookies, but then decided that the large quantity of coconut may make this more like a macaroon which is usually baked at 325. After continued experiments I can recommend 14 minutes at 325 F convection. If you don't have convection, maybe go for 15 minutes. The cookies are ideal only after they have totally cooled - until then they are floppy and hard to lift in one piece. Store them flat surface - otherwise, as they continue to cool, they may end up bent out of shape.
• Managing the bake - though I have a convection oven i tend to bake these one sheet at a time. First goes in and meanwhile i prep the second batch / cookie sheet. First comes out, onto a cooling rack, but to speed things along I prep the next batch on the parchment, on my kitchen counter. Just before batch number two comes out, the batch one cookie sheet is cool enough to handle and I slide it under the third batch parchment and the process continues efficiently. 

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