This week's episode of The Sporkful podcast is up! Listen through the player or iTunes/Podcasts app. (And please subscribe!)

Soon after the birth of her daughter, author and podcast host Hillary Frank (below as a young picky eater) reached a breaking point: she was tired of feeling like parenting experts were judging the way she raised her kid.

"I had just had my first baby. I was just embarking upon being a parent. I was at the most vulnerable time in my life, and I was already failing at it," Hillary says.

She found herself thinking, "I must be doing it wrong. There's something wrong with my kid. There's something wrong with me. There's something wrong with us."

As the years passed and she became more confident as a parent, Hillary came to realize that the techniques that worked best for her weren't the ones in the best-selling books -- they were the ones that she made up. If there's any real parenting rule at all, it's that parents should "trust their creativity."

In her new book, Weird Parenting Wins: Bathtub Dining, Family Scream, and Other Hacks from the Parenting Trenches, Hillary compiles the collective wisdom of real parents all over world – decidedly not parenting experts – to offer creative solutions to common parenting problems, including the one in question in this week's podcast: picky eating.

This week on the Sporkful, we dive into one of the book's food-related topics: how to outwit your kids and their stubbornly picky eating habits.

Then later in the episode... They say picky eating is all about control, right? Give your kids control, let them feel like they're calling the shots at dinnertime, and they'll eat! Well a few years back, Hillary and Dan did just that. They had kids call in to share their weird food creations. We'll hear that segment, and trust us, it's amazing and disgusting.

Interstitial music in this episode by Black Label Music:

- "Pumpernickel" by Karla Dietmeyer and Olivia Diercks

- "Party Hop" by Jack Ventimiglia

- "Cracker Jack" by Ken Brahmstedt

- "Trip With You" by Ken Brahmstedt

Photos: Courtesy of Hillary Frank