Freeze-out eases if it’s ‘Cookie Puss’ you crave

FOR the legions of former New Yorkers who call L.A. home, the slow expansion of Carvel Ice Cream in the city has been a cool jolt back into childhood.

Steve Winick opened the first L.A. store on Santa Monica Boulevard, one block east of Sepulveda, in September 2005. Last spring, Jordan Webb, the 30-year-old son of the mayor of Beverly Hills, opened one on Pico near Beverwil.

Winick, 41, lived on Long Island before moving west. “What was happening was when I went back to New York, I’d always get the pizza and the Carvel,” he said. Within months of opening, he was regularly delivering cakes -- “Cookie Puss” and “Fudgie the Whale” are icons of East Coast kiddie birthdays -- to nearby Fox and Sony lots.

On a recent Tuesday evening it was mostly former New Yorkers in Winick’s Carvel. “We flock here, “ said John Giddins, a real estate agent. “It’s all about the crunchies,” added his wife, Bonnie.

*

-- Deborah Netburn