Vagrant+Chef_Solo, download cookbooks from Vagrantfile, don't use this pattern though

gistfile1.txt

# http://wiki.opscode.com/display/chef/Cookbook+Site+API
# think http://wiki.opscode.com/display/chef/Managing+Cookbooks+With+Knife#ManagingCookbooksWithKnife-install
def download_and_uncompress(name, version)
  def download(file_url)
    uri = URI(file_url)
    tempfile = Tempfile.new(Random.rand(100).to_s())
    Net::HTTP.start(uri.host, uri.port) do |http|
      request = Net::HTTP::Get.new uri.request_uri
      http.request request do |response|
        open tempfile.path, 'w' do |io|
          response.read_body do |chunk|
            io.write chunk
          end
        end
      end
    end
    return tempfile
  end
  def ungzip(file)
    zipped = Zlib::GzipReader.new(file)
    unzipped = StringIO.new(zipped.read)
    zipped.close
    unzipped
  end
  def untar(io, destination)
    Gem::Package::TarReader.new io do |tar|
      tar.each do |tarfile|
        destination_file = File.join destination, tarfile.full_name
        if tarfile.directory?
          FileUtils.mkdir_p destination_file
        else
          destination_directory = File.dirname(destination_file)
          FileUtils.mkdir_p destination_directory unless File.directory?(destination_directory)
          File.open destination_file, "wb" do |f|
            f.print tarfile.read
          end
        end
      end
    end
  end
  # http://wiki.opscode.com/display/chef/Cookbook+Site+API#CookbookSiteAPI-%2Fcookbooks%2F%5C%2Fversions%2F%5C
  url = "http://cookbooks.opscode.com/api/v1/cookbooks/#{URI.encode(name)}/versions/#{URI.encode(version)}"
  response = Net::HTTP.get_response(URI.parse(url))
  data = response.body
  json = JSON.parse(data)
  if json.has_key? 'error_messages'
      raise 'Error retrieving ' + name + ': ' + json['error_messages'].to_s()
  end
  downloadedfile = download(json["file"])
  #https://gist.github.com/1335041
  untar(ungzip(downloadedfile), 'cookbooks')
end

download_and_uncompress('build-essential', '1_0_0')
download_and_uncompress('git', '0_10_0')
download_and_uncompress('python', '1_0_6')
download_and_uncompress('nodejs', '0_6_11')
download_and_uncompress('ruby', '0_9_0')
download_and_uncompress('npm', '0_1_0')



  config.vm.provision :chef_solo do |chef|
    chef.cookbooks_path = "cookbooks"
    chef.add_recipe "git"
    chef.add_recipe "python"
    chef.add_recipe "nodejs"
    chef.add_recipe "ruby"