Cara and I work together, and we’ve been known on occasion to schedule meetings about 9 miles away from our office.

Why? Because that’s where Ferdinand’s is.

Ferdinand’s is the storefront of the Washington State University Creamery, makers of Cougar Gold Cheese, and more importantly to our purposes, fabulous, creamy, award-winning ice cream.

For this episode, we sat down with John Haugen, who started slinging scoops at Ferdinand’s as a WSU student and now runs the show as creamery manager. You’ll learn how ice cream can be educational — and launch students into that most delicious of industries, dairy foods.

And after that, we discuss our own continuing education in ice cream making … and Cara’s is going better than mine.

Cara made a top-notch (and pretty pink!) Valentine’s Day creation, starting with the Black Cherry Chocolate Chip recipe from Sweet Pea’s Kitchen.

She swapped out the cream and whole milk for 2 cups of cream and 1 cup of skim, and since cherries are dreadfully out of season here in North Idaho, she used 4 cups of frozen sweet cherries.

Then my recipe. So.

I ostensibly made this recipe from the ever-reliable Melissa Clark at the New York Times.

But my recipe adjustments were not as successful as Cara’s. The Valentine candy pieces were a nice touch. But be warned: use bar chocolate, for the love of all that is delicious, NOT cocoa powder like I attempted to do. And whatever you do, don’t forget the liquor to keep it soft.

Otherwise, you’ll get a treat only a sugar-loving 7-year-old would love.

Finally, dear listeners, we’ve been meaning for a while to give props to the clever punmaster that named our show. We ran a brief contest among our Facebook Brain Trust back when Sundae Drive was just an unnamed idea, and my college buddy Jeremy Castillo came out the winner. He also happens to be an up-and-coming comedian in Hawaii: check out his Twitter feed here.

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE:

Now that we’re officially on iTunes, we need our loyal Sundae Drivers to leave us some stars! Think of them as sprinkles on the sundae that keeps this project going. You can start riiiiiight here — and we thank you for your support!