Southern Living's first woman editor bleeds Kentucky blue

McClatchy Newspapers (MCT) - There was that time when Eleanor Griffin totaled her car and her friends called to offer their condolences on the loss of her bumper sticker.

"I was so upset about my bumper sticker. It read: 'There's a Wildcat fan inside this car.' I had gotten it in Lexington."

Not to worry. The newly appointed editor of Southern Living magazine _ and the first woman ever at its helm _ said she bought her next car to match the big blue UK license plate now affixed to the front of her car. On the back bumper, another sticker announced where's she from and the color she bleeds.

She comes by it honestly. When she was a little girl growing up in Louisville, Ky., she says, her parents wouldn't let her stay up and hear Cawood Ledford call the last of late-running Kentucky basketball games. So she would wait in the dark and listen for the slamming of a door.

If her daddy slammed the door, the Wildcats had lost. If he didn't, they'd won.

She picked Memphis to take it all in this year's NCAA bracket, eschewing Louisville. A girl has her reasons.

Griffin's magazine is the seventh-largest monthly consumer magazine in the United States, with more than 16.3 million readers. Before she came to the editor-in-chief post at Southern Living, she launched Cottage Living as editor in 2004.

One of the things she'd like to do at Southern Living is attract younger readers, she says. One way they're doing that is something called Mama's Way/My Way.

"It's a way to retain the Southern-ness of the old ways but with short cuts. Everybody's busy," she says, "but nobody wants to give up the traditions. We're going to show you how."

As the first woman in 43 years to lead the magazine, she won't change it "fundamentally," she says.

"But it could become more feminine, without being more girly."

Feminine, not girly, sort of describes Kentucky women.

"Yes, very strong, get-it-done types. Real. Unpretentious. We know who we are."

And what we want done.

What does she want done? "Nothing gives me more pleasure than to show off my state."

She seems pretty well placed for that now.

She is clearly proud of her Kentucky heritage. In her first letter to her Southern Living readers, she introduces herself "as a Southerner from Louisville, Kentucky" and says her secret vice is "country ham on beaten biscuits, and I live for March Madness." In her third Letter From the Editor, she opens, "Being from Kentucky (albeit with a lower profile than Ashley Judd) ..."

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In the May edition, she is thrilled that she gets to showcase Ouita Michael's Holly Hill Inn in Midway, her favorite Kentucky town.

This is not a woman who just talks the hometown talk. She comes home a few times a year. She still pronounces Cadiz right. She can take on the whole debate of whether Lexington is Southern and Louisville is Midwestern without batting an eyelash.

Lexington is no debate, she says.

"And I can't vouch too much for the Cincinnati suburbs, but Louisville is very Southern in our laid-back graciousness. When I was young, a lot of banks and businesses moved in from Ohio, Indiana and North Dakota. I used to wonder about all this Big 10 action, the in-migration, but the Derby is a great teacher of how to slow down. People became what I call Kentuckian by Choice."

It's like, she says, midwesterners can try to transform us but they don't succeed. We're Southern, and nothing is stronger than that.

Griffin's voice is pure Kentucky. So, too, her sensibilities. At age 20, she went to a Derby party thrown by a friend's family and, to her dismay, discovered that they were serving chili.

"Chili? On Derby Day?," she feigns horror. "Everybody knows you serve turkey hash and fresh asparagus."

Ever so gently and perhaps not so subtly, as a thank-you gift, she sent the woman a Louisville Junior League cookbook.

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10 QUESTIONS WITH ELEANOR GRIFFIN

Favorite Kentucky food? "Country ham and beaten biscuits, from a recipe going back to my great-grandmother on my mother's side."

Favorite Kentucky drive? "I can't decide: Paris Pike or Frankfort Pike."

Favorite Kentucky place? "Rupp Arena."

Favorite things to do with bourbon? "Put it in a weak julep. My daddy used to make them so strong."

Favorite time of year in Kentucky? "NCAA selection Sunday, put an asterisk there, next year."

Favorite saying of your mama's? "Well that's enough to make a preacher cuss."

A lesson from your mama that you've never lost? "Treat everyone equally."

The thing you miss the most when you're not here? "Beaten biscuits. Everywhere else I go, I ask myself, What is with these overcooked biscuits?"

Do you tear up when you hear My Old Kentucky Home? "I get goose bumps."

How many mint juleps are too many? "You can't have too many. I have 53 julep cups under my bed at home. (Note to robbers: I have a security system going in.) I'd rather have an old Kentucky julep cup than diamonds or pearls."

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© 2009, Lexington Herald-Leader (Lexington, Ky.).