Q: A friend who visits his family in Puerto Rico brought me a one-pound tin of guava paste as a gift. It's very good with cheese but since there's so much of it I'm looking for other ways to use it. I've had it about 6 months. How long does it keep?

Lynne: It should still be fine. Guava paste is rather like fruit leather, it's very dense and sweet and it's really beautiful stuff. Try arranging alternate slices of guava paste and slices of good cream cheese on a small plate and drizzle on some guava juice if you have it.

In New York City Douglas Rodriguez has a restaurant called Patria where he's doing Nuevo Latino food. He does stuff with guava that's dynamite and one is guava paste used as a filling in little cookies or turnovers made from sweet cream cheese dough. Another idea is to put a thin slice of guava paste between thin slices of a spicy salami. It is out of this world. You could easily serve it as party food.

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