There is so much I miss when my children and I are away from New York, which I’ve been thinking about as I prepare to move my family back home from South Africa. What stands out in my mind the most is being able to get a great slice of pizza.

I know what you’re thinking. Pizza? What about the theater? What about Lincoln Center? The outstanding restaurants? The Metropolitan Museum? Central Park? The American Museum of Natural History?

When I’ve been away for a while, I am relieved to return to a city with cultural depth, believe me. I feel a certain intellectual security by living in a city with fiery artistic creativity and depth.

But what do I really miss when I am away from New York? That’s a different subject altogether.

I miss taking my gang to a greasy diner for breakfast. I miss getting caught in the rain with my girls just a few blocks away from home. No matter how fast we run, we inevitably arrive home soaked, with the promise of a cup of steaming hot chocolate in the air. I miss eating a soft pretzel with my children on a park bench. I miss picking up my children on foot — having dragged scooters with me so that we can zip home across the park—and stopping for a hot dog along the way.

I miss New Yorkers with their strong opinions. New Yorkers are interested in everything from the sublime to the ridiculous: local politics, baseball, our flawed education system, the Middle East, the primaries, and which ice cream vendor is charging too much money for a Good Humor King Cone.

I miss laying into my car horn when some sleepy driver in front of me is too busy talking on his cell phone to realize that the light has turned green. In Cape Town, heaven forbid you honk your horn: I have sat a few cars behind some spacey driver for nearly 30 seconds before he realized that the light had changed. No one honked, even though his was then the only car to go through the light before it turned to red again. A few months in the Southern Hemisphere, and I even miss being honked at when I’m the guilty party. I miss the New York drivers, some nice and some not so nice, trying to make it clear who really has the right of way in the city.

I miss the infectious energy that comes from walking down the street in the city. It is never a solitary experience to walk down the streets of New York. There are the old ladies telling me that my children are underdressed. There are other mothers sympathetically exchanging knowing glances as my children have tantrums.

Visitors often mistake New Yorkers as rude or unfriendly. This is simply not true. New Yorkers value their time more than most: They are impatient and demanding. These sentiments should not be confused with contempt or self-absorption.

On many occasions I have watched a person slip and fall on the sidewalk, only to be surrounded instantly by many concerned New Yorkers who insist on waiting until the ambulance arrives or the person stands up on his own. Looking back on when I was eight or nine months pregnant, I cannot count the number of times strangers offered to carry my groceries. My children have been carried, sleeping, by strangers from the car to our apartment — all with great love and tenderness.

When I live in South Africa, my children and I get in the car at home and are out only once we’ve reached the destination, which is perhaps not too different from what most Americans do in this regard. I miss the personal and unpredictable interactions that happen on the city street in New York.

Most of all, I miss stopping with my children after school and grabbing a slice of pizza. In most of the world, there is no such thing as ordering a slice of pizza. You order a pie.

It takes 20 minutes, and it’s usually pretty mediocre.

As any New Yorker knows, just because you need a quick bite doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice taste. Good olive oil and fresh mozzarella for $2 a slice — only in New York.

sarasberman@aol.com