Revert "Merge pull request #812 from opscode/lcg/CHEF-3307-empty-string-fix"

This reverts commit 439980b12ed78eb5f61c52cf0d23d4a9205d1011, reversing
changes made to de4d8e66be3dee3ccd9ac027e6332e0eb37f532e.
Revert "Merge branch 'CHEF-3307'"

This reverts commit 5713a002062c762e40e4378be6d7763eb3dd61a2, reversing
changes made to 4079a344f2001c1927132e7ed6b63453f459609f.

Conflicts:
	spec/unit/cookbook_loader_spec.rb
Merge branch 'CHEF-3307-revert'