Kelly Henderson displays a cake emblazoned with Fudgie the Whale at Henderson's Carvel ice cream shop at 1150 N. Silverbell Road.

Fudgie the Whale has been sighted in Tucson. He’s swimming in the confectionary “waters” off Silverbell Road – along with Cookie Puss, the Flying Saucer and other members of the Carvel ice cream family.

Kelly Henderson runs Tucson’s only Carvel franchise, at West Speedway Boulevard and North Silverbell Road. Last year, she saw an ad for a soft ice cream franchise for sale. When she learned it was a Carvel store, she and her family went to try the ice cream, for the first time ever.

“Once I tasted the soft-serve,” Henderson told me, “it was heaven.”

Of course it was heaven, Kelly. It was Carvel.

To we transplanted northeasterners, “Carvel” isn’t simply the name of a soft ice cream franchise. It’s a synonym for “fabulous.”

Started by Tom Carvel during the Great Depression, Carvel ice cream became a staple treat for kids of all ages throughout New York and New Jersey.

A large part of the Carvel mystique came from Tom Carvel himself. The franchise’s founder starred in many of Carvel’s advertisements. Northeasterners remember Carvel’s gravelly voice and quirky television spots as fondly as his ice cream.

Every day, Henderson and her staff make hard and soft ice cream products that go into cones, Flying Saucer ice cream sandwiches and the franchise’s signature ice cream cakes – of which Fudgie The Whale is the most famous.

While you can buy Carvel ice cream cakes in supermarkets, their taste and quality pale in comparison to a freshly made cake.

Most days, you’ll see Henderson behind the counter. A graduate of Carvel’s “College of Ice Cream Knowledge” (otherwise known as “Sundae School”), she’ll gladly tell you the difference between “ice cream” and “ice milk,” or some other soft-serve factoid.

My father’s family hails from Long Island and my wife’s from the outskirts of New York City. For me, no trip to New York has ever been complete without at least one Carvel visit, for a heavy dose of the sweetest, richest soft ice cream I’ve ever tasted.

Once, I even found a Carvel aficionado in Germany.

While in the Army, I struck up a conversation with a colleague during a live-fire exercise. When he mentioned he was from New York, I told him of my fond memories of Carvel. I’d lit a spark. He’d worked in a Carvel store during high school.

While cannons boomed in the background, he animatedly told me how Carvel’s high-fat and low-air contents made it stand out from other soft-serve ice creams.

Henderson hears the same enthusiasm in the stories her customers tell her.

“Pretty much all of the East Coasters, when they come in, it’s like they’re children again,” she said. Several customers have said Fudgie the Whale was a fixture at all their childhood birthday parties.

Henderson can tell Carvel novices from enthusiasts by the ice cream they order. Many Tucsonans, unaware of what they’re missing, order traditional hard-serve ice cream. The Carvelaholics, though, go directly for the soft-serve – with plenty of rainbow sprinkles or chocolate crunchies.

• • •

And, with that, my year as a “My Tucson” columnist ends. It’s been a wonderful experience. Thanks to Billie Stanton and Mark Kimble for this opportunity.

I’m retired Army. However, the most graceful farewell I know comes from my Navy colleagues. I doubt they’ll mind if I use it here.

Tucsonans, I bid you all fair winds and following seas.

Don Smith is a retired Army Reservist and military intelligence specialist who currently works as a defense contractor at Fort Huachuca. E-mail: unpaintedhuffheinz@cox.net

Congratulations to El Charro Cafe – an 86-year Tucson institution now celebrated as “legendary” by Gourmet magazine.

Tucsonans long have appreciated the delicious, authentic and, yes, “legendary” Mexican fare at El Charro.

And now downtown Tucson, where the original family establishment has flourished for decades, finally is coming back to life with new restaurants, shops and other businesses and entertainment venues springing up.

Tucson is fortunate to have five El Charro restaurants, but it is the downtown cafe that caught the eye of Gourmet.

And it is the downtown eatery – with its spacious outdoor patio and tiny gift shop of Southwestern goodies – that longtime locals long have loved.

Congratulations to El Charro and owner Ray Flores – local legends.

Kon Tiki serves mostly pseudo-Hawaiian food with fancy touristy names like "Monkeys on a Stick" (teriyaki sirloin), "Birds on a Wire" (chicken), "Tiki Burgers," and exotic drinks from the bar.

“Eh, wea da grinds stay in Tucson?” Pidgin English, spoken in Hawaii

“Do any restaurants in Tucson serve Hawaiian food?” Standard English translation

Someone asked me, a “local” born and raised on the Big Island of Hawaii, that question a few weeks ago.

Kon Tiki at 4625 E. Broadway, open since 1963, is the oldest Hawaiian-style restaurant in Tucson. Most people know it from the huge tiki gods in the front.

Kon Tiki serves mostly pseudo-Hawaiian food with fancy touristy names like “Monkeys on a Stick” (teriyaki sirloin), “Birds on a Wire” (chicken), “Tiki Burgers,” and exotic drinks from the bar.

The interior is quite Polynesian though – palm trees, thatched rooflike areas, numerous tiki images of Hawaiian gods and generous usage of kapa (Hawaiian bark cloth made from the paper mulberry plant).

One of the amusing things about Kon Tiki is the bathroom labels: Wahine for women and Warrior for men (should be Kane – pronounced kah-nay in Hawaiian).

A more authentic Hawaiian restaurant is Lani’s Luau at 2532 S. Harrison Road – a welcoming place and only a little more than a year old.

The proprietors are Zane and Leilani Dowling, the latter, like me, is originally from the Big Island. She loves to cook and they serve the typical Hawaiian plate lunch – teri chicken, kalua pig, Korean chicken, mahi mahi fish, all with the usual two scoops of rice and potato salad. It’s just like the plate lunch wagon back home.

I love the “luau plate” with kalua pork, laulau, lomilomi salmon, poke fish and chicken long rice. For those of you not too familiar with Hawaiian food, you may want to try something else. But we locals love the luau plate, especially with poi (made from the taro root) when it’s available.

Decorations at Lani’s Luau are a motley arrangement of Hawaiian print curtains, postcards and memorabilia from Hawaii. The music playing is real Hawaiian slack key.

But the authenticity of the food speaks for itself, as Lani even makes haupia (coconut pudding), Spam musubi (a piece of fried Spam wrapped in rice and seaweed), and ice shave (softer than a snow cone).

A third restaurant just opened on March 22 – Northshore Hawaiian Cuisine, 6255 E. Golf Links Road. Jeff Sternitzky and his Honolulu-born wife, Jessica Brown, are serving deli-style plate lunches (lau lau, mahi, beef stew, teri chicken, kalbi) on the weekends.

This sports bar opened in July and is mostly serving cheeseburgers/fries/tacos/chicken wings during the week. I did try their mahi fish plate and some fried rice recently and both were some ono (delicious in Pidgin English).

You can find Hawaiian food products in Tucson at G&L Import Export, 4828 E. 22nd St., and the 17th Street Farmers Market, 840 E. 17th St.

I found some local favorites like “cracked seed” and “sweet li hing mui” at G&L, and Hawaiian salt, guava jelly and taro chips at the 17th Street Market.

But the best store with lots of Hawaiian food items is Sun Oriental Market, 2205 S. Craycroft Road. It has both chicken and pork lau lau, Portuguese sausage, manapua, Aloha shoyu, Hawaiian Sun fruit drinks and even chocolate-covered macadamia nuts.

I almost felt like I was back home. And only this Sun market had frozen poi!

Happy eating, or as we say in Hawaii, “go eat till you’re tired.”

Hawaii native Carolyn Classen, was legislative aide to U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye and a former practicing attorney who now is a community volunteer and Small Claims Court hearing officer. E-mail: carolynclassen@yahoo.com