San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Chocolatier, team score a sweet victory on Food Network
Susana Mijares is a champion. On Oct. 30, the co-owner of Délice Chocolatier and Patisserie on Loop 1604 near Blanco Road, won Season 12 of the reality show competition “Halloween Wars” on the Food Network.
Mijares was joined in victory by her teammates, Monique Hawk and Janira Green, who competed on the show as Ghosty Gals.
This was the first time Mijares has brought home first place after competing on a handful of Food Network series in the past five years. She was featured on “Spring Baking Championship” in 2016, “Best Baker in America” in 2017 and “Holiday Wars” in 2021.
Season 12 of “Halloween Wars” started with nine teams. Each week, one team was eliminated. In the season finale, Ghosty Gals went up against a team known as Lollipop Lunatics. For their final challenge, both were tasked with creating a spooky fashion show inspired by the catacombs in Paris. Ghosty Gals chose to present their edible artwork as a skeleton dressed in a haunting couture dress.
Mijares watched the season finale at home with friends and family, including her husband, Nacho Aguirre, who is also a Food Network veteran. In 2018, Aguirre won “Spring Baking Championship.” For the past four years, Mijares has halfjoked
that she needed to win one of the TV competitions so Aguirre wouldn’t be the only Food Network champion in the family.
“(Nacho) was super happy and super proud,” Mijares said during an interview after the
final episode aired. “And now I can tell him that I won, too! It’s something I had on the back of my mind.”
Since the season finale was taped in January, Mijares had to keep her win a secret for nine months. It was difficult, especially since everyone wanted to know how the series would end.
Mijares hopes her victory teaches her children they should never give up if they want to achieve something. She wanted to win a Food Network show, and now she has done just that.
“That’s the message I want to give to my family,” she said. “I did this for them and for this beautiful city of San Antonio that has made us feel right at home.
“It was so hard not talking about it,” she said. “People would ask, and I would just say, ‘It’s so much nicer to wait for the unexpected!’ ”
Along with her husband, four of Mijares’ five children were watching with her at her home. A daughter who attends college out of state FaceTimed her as soon as the episode was over to congratulate her. Mijares also spoke to Hawk and Green to revel in their success and talk about how positive the experience was working together.
“I was so blessed to have been on such an amazing team,” she said. “They’re very talented and super nice people. We really put our hearts into it.”