CakePHP: get user info in models

I'm moving some of my find code inside models.

Previously in my controller I had

$this->Book->Review->find('first', array(
    'conditions' => array(
        'Review.book_id' => $id,
        'Review.user_id' => $this->Auth->user('id')
    )
));

so in my Review model I put something like

function own($id) {
    $this->contain();
    $review = $this->find('first', array(
        'conditions' => array(
            'Review.book_id' => $id,
            'Review.user_id' => AuthComponent::user('id')
        )
    ));
    return $review;
}

So I'm calling AuthComponent statically from the Model. I know I can do this for the method AuthComponent::password(), which is useful for validation. But I'm getting errors using the method AuthComponent::user(), in particular

Fatal error: Call to a member function
check() on a non-object in
/var/www/MathOnline/cake/libs/controller/components/auth.php
on line 663

Is there a way to get the info about the currently logged user from a model?