Let's says that we have a Contact that only can have one country assigned.
In model/contact.php
class Contact extends ActiveRecord { var $belongs_to = array('country'=>array('foreign_key'=>'country_id')); }
In model/country.php
class Country extends ActiveRecord { var $has_many = 'contacts'; }
Then in the controller/contact.php
function show() { $this->Contact->country->load(); }
Now in contact.show.tpl we just show the country
{contact.country.name}