I don’t think I’ve ever met a cheesy bread I didn’t like but few of them have really stayed in my memory past gobbling them up. But that’s probably just because I hadn’t met this Olive Cheese Bread yet. See, it’s more than just a cheesy bread — though it definitely has oodles of melty, gooey cheese — it’s also perfectly balanced with piles of salty black and green olives (and a few other things too). In other words, everything you want in an appetizer and something you’ll certainly remember long past that last bite.

There is a secret to good cheesy bread and that’s that you don’t want to just scatter cheese over the top and melt it. No, it needs a carrier, something to make it into more of a spread that really becomes one with the bread, and that’s where mayo comes in. And butter too. They’re the base, the carrier for all that cheese, and all the other good stuff too.

You just want to mix together softened butter and mayo until they’re smooth and then tuck in chopped green and black olives, green onion, and plenty of Monterey Jack cheese. I like a rough chop on the olives so they still have a nice bite to them — we’re not going for tapenade.

Monterey Jack is the perfect cheese choice here, melty but creamy, and not so pronounced in flavor that it competes with the olive and green onion. It’s mellow and mild and that’s just what’s needed to let those olives shine.

Spread that all over a loaf of soft French bread and give it twenty minutes to get melty in the oven and you’ve got the cheesy bread of your olive-loving dreams.