No need to do the 'spring cleaning'. For a blast of fresh wind, go and chew a kola nut.

Kola nuts are 'the real thing.' Popular in West Africa, they have no flavor at all. Their appeal is that when you chew one and it's completely puckered up your mouth, it will leave it feeling as if a sharp wind had blown through it. Plus it's got three times more caffeine than coffee. If that's attractive to you...

You can get them, dried, along with general grocery staples, cows' feet, pigs' trotters, oxtail, goat and stewing chickens, at Eko Food Store, 6507 Annapolis Rd, Landover Hills, 301 341 5050. In the cooked food section, you will find pepper soups, patties, jollof rice and stewed meat dishes. Crates of fresh coconut, plantain, okra, yams and other roots and tubers vie with open barrels of pulses, lentils and grains. Tea Bread, the soft, slightly sweet Ghanaian bread, is sold here.