[chef] Speeding up development

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I'm just getting started with chef and I'm somewhat frustrated by how long it
takes to debug recipes.  Chef-Solo takes 4 seconds to fire up and run a simple
recipe on a mac and 20 seconds on windows.  We're porting a bunch of 
automation
from powershell and batch scripts to chef, and I'm used to making a change and
running it instantly.

I figure I am just a newbie and don't know the tricks behind doing chef
development.  What tricks are people using to do this?