See the node from chef client point of view

Go to the node and run (as root) shef -z. With this you can explore the node as seen from the chef-client.
Have a look at http://wiki.opscode.com/display/chef/Shef

examples:

chef > search(:node,'recipes:nova\:\:api').select{|node| puts node.fqdn}
d78-2b-cb-4a-41-64.crowbar.org
 => [] 
chef > search(:node,'recipes:nova\:\:compute').select{|node| puts node.fqdn}
d78-2b-cb-4a-47-0d.crowbar.org
d78-2b-cb-4b-ad-6a.crowbar.org