Team Ghosty Gals – Left to Right – Monique Hawk, Janira Green, and Susana Mijares.
Susana Mijares and her husband Nacho Aguirre always seem to be extra busy when Halloween rolls around each year. It’s likely trick-or-treaters in their neighborhood have realized that if they want more than the average bite-sized Snickers or Milky Way, the home where the owners of Délice Chocolatier and Patisserie live is probably the first they should visit.
“Normally, we will do something like chocolate-covered marshmallows or something we know kids will like,” Mijares told MySA during a recent interview. “We’re chocolatiers, so everyone knows they’re going to get something special at our house.”
Mijares, who moved with her family to San Antonio from Torreón, Mexico, in 2009, is competing on season 12 of Halloween Wars on the Food Network. This is the fourth reality-show competition she has participated in over the last five years. Mijares started on Spring Baking Championship in 2016 and has also been featured on Best Baker in America in 2017 and Holiday Wars in 2021.
Aguirre, too, has competed on different shows and served as a judge on others. He won the grand prize of $50,000 on Spring Baking Championship two years after Mijares finished as a runner-up. Driven to win it all, Mijares was excited about the challenge a Halloween-themed culinary competition could bring, especially since she’s never really included ghouls and goblins into her sugary artistry.
Contestant Susana Mijares , as seen on Halloween Wars, Season 12.
«The concept is different than anything I’ve done before because it’s Halloween,” she said. “This was a bunch of creepy things. I’m used to butterflies and flowers. But I loved doing it, and I learned a lot, too.”
The first episode of the new season, which debuted last week, featured Mijares joining forces with two other chefs to form the team known as Ghosty Gals. Their first assignment was to create an edible work of art that incorporated the voodoo history of New Orleans with the flavors of meringue buttercream and praline.
Mijares, a graduate of the Cordon Bleu Paris, got her first taste of what it was like working on a team last year during Holiday Wars. While she’s always been a part of a husband-wife team at Délice, Mijares said it’s a “whole different experience” when competing on a big stage like the Food Network.
“When you’re doing it individually, everything is up to you,” she said. “So, you just find a way to adjust when you have a group of talented people working with you. It’s all about compromising and doing what’s best for the team.”
With another reality show complete, Mijares is grateful for getting another opportunity to share her culinary skills with the world and show people that San Antonio is “more than just a city for great tacos and Mexican food.”
“We have excellent desserts, too,” she said. “I feel San Antonio is well represented right now, and that fills my heart.”
The third episode (and final preliminary round episode) of Halloween Wars season 12 airs on Sunday, September 25, at 8 p.m. Mijares and her Ghosty Gals team will next be seen when they start the main competition on the fourth episode on October 2 at 8 p.m.
You can watch the trailer for Halloween Wars here:
